Jesus and Mary Chain:
Damage and Joy:
Artifical Plastic:
LP/DD/CD:
Out Now:
"I spent the night with a blow-up girl and some L.S.D." - a sample lyric from Get On Home ought to tell you all you need to know about Damage and Joy. It's business as usual for the Reid brothers on their seventh studio album, their first for nineteen years since the erratic Munki hit the shelves.
Times have changed dramatically since the late '90s - the internet has mushroomed, the lunatics are running the asylum and chip-tunes, grime and facile pop rule the airwaves. So, not much space left for the likes of ageing feedback-soaked rockers then? Ten of the fourteen songs on offer here suggest otherwise - Damage and Joy is actually great fun in places, suggesting the Jesus and Mary Chain had a blast putting this together. Without label-pressures or music monthlies champing at the bit, the Reids have little to worry about except filling a few well-chosen venues on the accompanying tour.
Lead-off track and recent single Amputation has all the sneering and grimacing of old, the typical hooks and riffs recycled from the Velvets, Creation and Stooges songbooks and high-school lyrics, a combination that continues to serve them and us well across the entire set. With varying degrees of intensity, Damage and Joy recalls Sidewalking, April Skies and Sometimes Always but not Never Understand or Upside Down, save for the ballsy conclusion to War On Peace and the aforementioned Get On Home.
There is much to savour on this (almost) magnificent-seventh, although the middle of the album wains somewhat with forgettable mitherings - the best tracks bookend the whole caboodle plus there are some decent cameos from Isobel Campbell, William's partner Bernadette Dening and producer Youth who successfully manages to make matters sonically slick without the tricks.
7/10
Damage and Joy:
Artifical Plastic:
LP/DD/CD:
Out Now:
Times have changed dramatically since the late '90s - the internet has mushroomed, the lunatics are running the asylum and chip-tunes, grime and facile pop rule the airwaves. So, not much space left for the likes of ageing feedback-soaked rockers then? Ten of the fourteen songs on offer here suggest otherwise - Damage and Joy is actually great fun in places, suggesting the Jesus and Mary Chain had a blast putting this together. Without label-pressures or music monthlies champing at the bit, the Reids have little to worry about except filling a few well-chosen venues on the accompanying tour.
Lead-off track and recent single Amputation has all the sneering and grimacing of old, the typical hooks and riffs recycled from the Velvets, Creation and Stooges songbooks and high-school lyrics, a combination that continues to serve them and us well across the entire set. With varying degrees of intensity, Damage and Joy recalls Sidewalking, April Skies and Sometimes Always but not Never Understand or Upside Down, save for the ballsy conclusion to War On Peace and the aforementioned Get On Home.
There is much to savour on this (almost) magnificent-seventh, although the middle of the album wains somewhat with forgettable mitherings - the best tracks bookend the whole caboodle plus there are some decent cameos from Isobel Campbell, William's partner Bernadette Dening and producer Youth who successfully manages to make matters sonically slick without the tricks.
7/10