It was shocking enough when the long-delayed reissues of My Bloody Valentine’s two studio albums finally were released earlier this year, but now frontman Kevin Shields claims he’ll release the 21-year-in-the-making follow-up to ‘Loveless’ by the end of the year — and will follow that up with an EP of even newer music.

With the My Bloody Valentine’s long-delayed reissues now out and Kevin Shields talking openly about a new album, it appears 2013 will see actual MBV activity: The band is scheduled to perform three concerts in Japan next February, which would mark the dormant group’s first performances since 2009.

Now that My Bloody Valentine’s long-delayed reissues are finally out, the Analog Loyalist who runs the Power of Independent Trucking blog says there’s a packaging foul-up with ‘Loveless’: the two discs, featuring separate masterings of the 1991 album, are reversed.

This week’s new releases include — at long last — the reissues of My Bloody Valentine’s two studio albums, plus a compilation of EPs and unreleased tracks, as well as the new self-titled debut from Heavy Blanket, a project that finds Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis playing ‘psych-drenched instrumental blues jams.’

With My Bloody Valentine’s reissues now due out in a little more than a week, Sony today offered up the first photographic evidence of their existence, posting photos of the what purports to be the packaging of the two reissues and the new ‘EPs 1988-1991’ compilation on the band’s Facebook page.

After years of delays, Sony Music today announced that remastered version of My Bloody Valentine’s two albums — 1988′s ‘Isn’t Anything’ and 1991’s ‘Loveless’ — finally will be released this May alongside the new 2CD set ‘EPs 1988-1991,’ which will compile EPs, B-sides and three previously unreleased tracks.

It’s good news/bad news for My Bloody Valentine fans: The endlessly delayed reissue of 1988’s ‘Isn’t Anything’ and 1991’s ‘Loveless’ — the latter featuring an unreleased alternate mix by Kevin Shields — no longer have release dates, but Sony Music is planning to release an MBV disc entitled ‘EPs 1988-1991’ this spring.