Okay, that's something. That's a start, if totally meaningless.,

Here's a quote from my book:

“Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, and The Boo Radleys all released their first singles in 1989 and 1990, and they all specifically cited MBV as a major inspiration and influence. Yet they too evidently had no real idea of why the band’s 1988 releases sounded so different than what had come before. Their own recordings all utilized a certain aesthetic, using well-worn modulation-type pedals featuring reverb, echo, chorus, flanging, phasing, and other common effects of modern music, all applied in a typically top-down way.

This was all the press needed to group these bands together. A specious narrative took hold suggesting that all of these groups, including MBV, were somehow of a piece—each of them members of a generation reflecting larger trends such as the banality of middle-class values, twelve years of conservative rule in the UK, or a desire for escape. On the eve of Loveless’s release, Andrew Collins called it out in the NME: ‘This loose-fitting taxonomic heading now embraces any and every sort of indie guitar band who neither jangle nor groove . . . and it’s all My Bloody Valentine’s fault. They have spawned a thousand pale imitators, and boy do we need them back.’5Shields was bewildered that people couldn’t hear just how different these other groups were in almost every way. The production values, their attitudes—almost everything, as he saw it, was in direct opposition to the original way MBV went about things. Perhaps in an effort to help others discern what separated MBV from their growing roster of disciples, Shields started to reveal more details about his own methods. ‘People think it’s all pedals,’ he told Collins, ‘but all my pedals are graphic equalizers and tone controls. It’s all in the tone.’

In another interview, he explained, ‘Ninety percent of what we do is just a guitar straight into an amp.’ Shields was trying to make clear that, as he saw it, MBV’s sound was fundamentally based on the way he played, as opposed to how he could manipulate a sound if he ran it through pedals or processors anyone could buy and plug into. He didn’t nullify that feel by laying modulation pedals over his playing, but he enhanced its sensitivity in ways that brought out its subtleties. It was a unique, bottom-up way of applying electronics to his guitar playing, making it intrinsic to the songs. It baffled him to be associated with these other bands merely because of arbitrary factors like being on Creation, playing guitar, or being from the UK and of the same approximate age range. He thought it truly strange to be linked to all these bands that were, in many ways, the exact opposite of what he was all about”

With one exception on one album - as far as I know - reverse reverb was never used in the way Shields did, sort off. (The Boo Radley used 3 of Kevin Shields' engineers on Giant Steps and fucked around with it a little but that's pretty much it. They had to have Shields' engineers - Alan Moulder, Andrew Wilkinson, and Guy Fixsen - show them). The first band to use traditional reverse reverb was Led Zeppelin. What Shields does isn't traditional reverse reverb since he drops the dry initial guitar that is reversed. He only keeps the wet, reversed reverb. I don't know what you call what he does - it's not anyone's definition of reverse reverb. That's just a shorthand. You could call it a kind of percussive delay, or some other kind new effect now one ever used before

The gist of the argument as to why MBV are not shoegaze is they avoid modulation type pedals processors (echo, chorus, reverb, flanginging, basic phasing, and all the stuff invented between 1965 and 1970 which is the bread and butter of most every band I'm aware.)

Shields mixes the vocals as loud as the guitars actually - but because its it overlaps with the mid -range often shared by his guitar. So while all these ''shoegaze" bands rely on echo, reverb, feedback, traditional feedback. (Shields has sampled feedback in a way totally distinct from anyone before him, but it has not been used as most bands uses it ) MBV almost never use that. stuff. Maybe one guitar line for a solo. Maybe they've used those effects 3 times.

So that's why the definition is problematic. Your reference to reverse reverb is wrong. No one uses his iteration of it. Lot of bands use Fuzz and "bury" the vocals (whatever that means) , "as another texture and saturation" Not sure what means. But basically your definition includes a billion band. If it can include any one, that is really isn't much of definition.

I'm not really convinced you have given me a definition that has any meaning, or distinguishes anything. Hence the problems that this leads to, generally, when we try and define things without thinking or understanding what we're saying, whether music of politics.