The Jesus And Mary Chain

Staying true to a sound while innovating with each release is the musical equivalent of gymnastics’ Produnova (vault of death). By incorporating skittering electronics and throbbing synths into their heritage noise-pop sound, post-punk legends The Jesus and Mary Chain manage to stick the landing 40 years into a storied career.

JAMC infamously ended its first run as a band in 1998, when a substance-fuelled onstage fallout led co-founding guitarist William Reid to abandon sibling Jim 15 minutes into a show at LA’s House of Blues. It would be nine years before the battling brothers returned to the stage in 2007, now a revered ’80s act made relevant to a new generation by the inclusion of the group’s seminal 1985 single “Just Like Honey” in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. Several nostalgia tours followed, but it would be another decade before the JAMC would attempt to record new material. The result was 2017’s Damage and Joy, a scavenged effort with half of the album’s 14 compositions repurposed from sundry side projects.

This makes Glasgow Eyes, in a sense, the first proper album released by the Reids since 1998’s Munki. Recorded at the Castle of Doom studio owned by fellow Glaswegians (and admitted JAMC disciples) Mogwai, the production signifies a coherent next step in the fraternal partnership that is always at its best innovating while referencing a shared past. When the band debuted in 1984, that meant combining golden-oldie song sensibilities with waves of screeching fuzz and feedback. In 2024, it means adding precision electronic sounds to the sublime songcraft that has always been the Reids’ greatest asset. The guitars are still seared, just not fried to a crisp.

Except for when they are—like on the positively rollicking “The Eagles and the Beatles”, an infinity mirror that references JAMC’s noisiest ’80s output, which itself referenced early-’60s wall-of-sound pop-rock confections. William appears to have dug out whatever guitar/pedal/amplifier combo created the glass-cutting feedback of the band’s earliest records and uses it on a riff that’s equal parts Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ’N Roll” and Weezer’s “Beverly Hills”, while Jim deadpans, “Mick and Keith and Brian Jones,” among other ’60s luminaries. Equally on the nose is the album’s closer, “Hey Lou Reid”, which sounds like JAMC doing their best VU. It’s a familiar trope for the brothers, but one that has yet to grow old.

Tracklisting

Venal Joy
American Born
Mediterranean X Film
Jamcod
Discotheque
Pure Poor
The Eagles And The Beatles
Silver Strings
Chemical Animal
Second Of June
Girl 71
Hey Lou Reid

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