Already over a decade into their existence, shoegazey trio Tennis System's third full-length album, Lovesick, has the sharp immediacy of a debut. Centered around the songs of singer/guitarist Matty Taylor, the band started in the late 2000s in Washington, D.C., and earlier albums approached shoegaze guitar textures with a scrappy melodic sense borrowed from the C-86 scene and undercurrents of edgy D.C. punk. Lineups shifted repeatedly, and Taylor relocated from D.C. to Los Angeles, pushing Tennis System forward with new players. Lovesick sheds the last of Taylor's indie impulses, turning up the volume but going for a blurry wall of slow-burning sound and colors borrowed directly from the moodiest corners of shoegaze. The album asserts this sound right out of the gate with the brilliant opening track, "Shelf Life." Woozy guitars bend around buried whispers of vocals and flute-like synth sounds flutter around the mix, giving the track the same pink-and-purple glow as My Bloody Valentine's signature sounds on Loveless. Rather than stopping at mere re-creation, the song unexpectedly veers into a dynamic breakdown in its second half, slowing down and becoming more dreamlike before ramping back up to an even more distorted finale. Much of Lovesick is built on surprising shifts like this. Taylor calls on grinding grunge dissonance on the stark and angsty "Cut," but quickly moves from sounding like the Wipers on that track to evoking the angular pop of the Swirlies and the driving melancholy of Swervedriver on next song "Alone." Throughout Lovesick, dynamics guide the songs' emotional push, with "Deserve" moving through tense moments of quiet uneasiness before breaking back into noise and album standout "Turn" amplifying its catchy chorus by pulling back on the verses. A drawn-out title track closes the album, alternating between a quiet, Smashing Pumpkins-esque guitar riff and burning, feverish full-band blasts. Playing a track from Lovesick back to back with something from earlier in Tennis System's catalog wouldn't necessarily sound like the work of two different bands, but this album sounds far more self-assured and intentional than any before it. Even with a sound palette so closely associated with the golden era of shoegaze, Taylor sounds more like himself than ever on these songs.