Jesus and Mary Chain Mania!

Ha! A friend messaged me last week to say "I've had a Facebook friend recommendation for Jim Reid!"

I had the same recommendation two days later.

Has William been recommended to anyone, though??

ILX fave Annie covers "Just Like Honey"

https://www.stereogum.com/2153678/annie-just-like-honey-the-jesus-and-mary-chain-cover/music/

they announced a warm up gig in Brighton because they're playing a festival in Spain next month. I got tickets, first time I've seen them since 2009.

That week is going to be a bit crazy, it's all 90s indie rock all the time, I'm seeing Sultans of Ping on Saturday, Superchunk on Monday, JAMC on Thursday and Stereolab on Friday

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/28/jesus-and-mary-chain-glasgow-eyes-album-art.jpeg

Glasgow Eyes

1. Venal Joy
2. American Born
3. Mediterranean X Film
4. jamcod
5. Discotheque
6. Pure Poor
7. The Eagles and The Beatles
8. Silver Strings
9. Chemical Animal
10. Second of June
11. Girl 71
12. Hey Lou Reid

Out on March 8, 2024 via Fuzz Club

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3_NOCiRbII

lol "hey lou reid"

Genuinely surprised they hadn’t made that pun before

Fingers crossed it's a Liz Phair cover

https://www.stereogum.com/2243247/the-alternative-number-ones-the-jesus-and-mary-chains-blues-from-a-gun/columns/the-alternative-number-ones/?1701268180

recently discovered their version of Alphabet Street. my gosh.

Ha yeah.

This is not them....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRWEpHonhVQ

that album track sounds good (although the video looks like 5 minutes of jim sat on a chair was all they had to work with). it also clears up that it's jamc-od and not, as i thought, jam-cod.

Song is way better than it has any right of being. Sounds like The Jesus and Mary Chain.

album is out on March 8 everywhere, except on Bandcamp, that's February 8? or did someone mess up?

Is it another case of digital release being ahead of physical release?

Think I like the second teaser even better. Exciting

xpost: the 24bit/high res digital version on qobuz is March 8 as well

All this JAMC talk made me dust off "Honey's Dead," and man, that album is so loud!

this is unexpectedly blowing me way rn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqdtTjEXqFw

Away even

Never Understand: starts at the 10 minute mark and is the best thing since the last best thing

Incredible, but docked a point for failing to showcase that gong left hanging on the wall.

haha, yes!

Even do a note perfect "Jesus Suck"

if you check out the rest of their channel, they cover a lot of different bands

Second song is good too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6yMXY59ZfQ

looking up the new LP release date, annoyed that the font is wrong on the website, then noticing for the first time that the typeface pretty much changes with every release and the good, cool typeface i thought was everywhere is only really on Darklands era stuff.

* Please note that due to a delay in vinyl production, the release date has been pushed back to March 22nd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD0HwKM-Wwo

New album is out today, can't listen to it at the moment.

it sounds like the Jesus and Mary Chain

I like it! Just enough variations on the JAMC sound to keep it interesting. Another solid addition (but not essential like the 85-92 stuff, those days are long gone)

It doesn't even sound like a JAMC album to me. Half the time, it sounds like extremely poor imitation Suicide, with a lyricist about 1/1000 as brilliant as Alan Vega. Also, the last line of this review is hilarious. "As they advance into middle age"? The Reid brothers are 62 and 65.

The cheap-ass synths on almost every track are proof that they were only ever the sum of their guitar pedals. They should have broken up the day after Psychocandy came out. A brilliant one-off gesture > an increasingly tedious "career."

Their best album is their singles collection

Yeah, honestly, I could hang onto 21 Singles and Barbed Wire Kisses.

"Head On" >>>>>> Psychocandy

I am of the moderate centrist position that they should have stopped after Automatic

Which is not to say I begrudge them their continued existence, we all must make rent as best we are able in this cursed world

The world is a poorer place without "Almost Gold" and "Far Gone and Out."

Perhaps marginally poorer but I am okay with it. I dunno, I lived thru all those 90s JAMC records and saw them at the tail end of their OG incarnation, and it was all good enough. But I think those first three records and Sidewalking are where it is most at.

it was playing in hmv this morning when i went to buy a copy, always slightly embarrassing

(just ask them to turn down that racket while you're paying)

Honeys Dead is a cracking album

I saw them play at Electric Picnic in '07 and they were probably the dreariest act I watched that weekend.

I like post-Psychocandy JAMC okay, but I can totally understand how they could seem ridiculous, naff, unintentionally comedic/parodic, it’s part of the package I guess

it was playing in hmv this morning when i went to buy a copy, always slightly embarrassing

Story I have recounted before: the fights that used to go on for control of the turntable when I worked at a record store in the mid-'80s. I honestly thought Psychocandy was perfect for a busy Saturday afternoon, a much better choice than Robert Palmer or Whitney Houston or Bruce Hornsby or whatever.

I still love the album whenever I revisit something on YouTube, but, from a customer standpoint, I really don't know what I was thinking.

(I know you're talking about the new album, which I haven't heard and probably never will.)

have been buying their stuff since Never Understand and haven't had a reason to stop yet. can't think of another band where that's true.

@Kraal: the moderate centrist position is definitely defensible, but I think Honey's Dead and the slightly leftfield Stoned and Dethroned are more than worthy. Finding the new one kind of a bummer on the first pass though.

Saw em in Philly on the tour where William bailed (Munki?). Only time I did; wish I'd gotten it together to go sooner.

Loved Honey's Dead upon release (probably the first album I got from them) and saw them on the US Rollercoaster tour. Worked my way back after that but tuned out by the time Stoned came out (it's nice though and Sometimes Always is a minor classic). Since then, I've filed them in the category of dependable bands who I don't really need anymore new/extra music from. Might pick up the new one since I'm hearing a a bit of extra synth in their sound.

I was going to get the cassette edition, but all places had it sold-out/unavailable three days ago.

I suspect it got cancelled. Unless any of youse got it ordered?

New one has some cool bits (the advance tracks mostly) but also some really abysmal career nadirs (The Eagles and the Beatles? Wtf)