My Bloody Valentine - You Made Me Realise (1987)

hprill's review on Rate Your Music (4.5/5):

"Perfect.

If MBV ever released a collection of songs that doesn't even carry an ounce of pretentiousness in it, this is it; this is as straight as MBV ever were. The five tracks on this EP aren't artsy, dreamy or shoegazey; they are great pop music without all the bubblegum and the polish.

Everything is as tight as it can get. The title track is urgent, powerful and noisy; "Slow" is, well, slow and heavy on the bass. "Thorn" surprises with acoustic guitars and a post-Smiths attitude that other British bands must have envied well into the early 1990s.

Don't expect anything like Loveless -- there are no blobs of sound on this album, even though traces of the band's future sound are noticeable. But here the drums are still pounding, the lyrics still understandable, and the songs are compact and don't flow (or float) around the room.

As fantastic as British indie pop ever got in the late 80s."

Or, you can go with my review on the same site (5/5, though I'd give it a 6/5 if I could):

"Amazing that in this transitional period the band managed to release the most cogent and concise work in their œuvre. The songs come on, whoosh past you; ephemeral.

Now time to start hunting for this on vinyl."

Get it here.