A Place To Bury Strangers — A Place To Bury Strangers

One gets the feeling My Bloody Valentine decided to reunite because of bands like A Place To Bury Strangers. There are no shortage of groups emulating Loveless's classic template and MBV must have figured, "If all these bands can profit off of this, why not us?" If Autolux took on MBV's more lush tendencies and Serena Maneesh handled the ambient side, then Brooklyn's A Place To Bury Strangers are all about the noise. You can practically hear your eardrums shattering at a show when you spin the group's self-titled debut. It's soaked in Joy Division dread and early Nine Inch Nails effects for good measure. They're obviously not the first to mine this territory, though they might be the most exciting. That three people could produce a sound this big is astonishing. That they could be good enough to render obsolete the entire MBV comeback is even more of an accomplishment.