The Jesus and Mary Chain
Glasgow Eyes (Fuzz Club)
By Scott Deckman
The Jesus and Mary Chain‘s first record in seven years, Glasgow Eyes, shows the band, as usual, mired in the nihilist muck, but evolving somewhat. The brothers are still obsessed with America, just like their more famous postpunk counterparts across the Irish Sea. The group’s takes are a bit darker, of course, and they briefly explore this topic and more on the new record. And talk about dark, third track “Mediterranean X Film” is a nervy ride through acolyte Starflyer 59’s mid-period indie rock beat mixed with piano, sounding unlike anything in the band’s catalogue. The song mentions Churchill, de Gaulle, the Berlin Wall, and June Cash (“It looks like we love everybody”), but finishes with sinister coda “Dark is dead,” only the dark is very much alive with the mantra repeated in a William Reid whisper, underscored by the addition of horror film keys in the long outro. Make of the song what you will.
“Jamcod” is an archetypal Jesus and Mary Chain single in the way it unsettles: talking about a monkey organ grinder, “fuckin’ up and then falling down,” eventually landing “face-down on the floor,”; “Tears are what you want/Tears are what you’ve got.” It’s sinister (yes, second usage), starting out with a near-silent groove and weird synthetics, eventually breaking out into a loud guitar, but not too much. Jim Reid declares he’s dead of an apparent drug overdose. How uplifting. Whether it’s a take on silly celebrity culture that values clicks more than actual lives, or an evergreen warning the band lives by, it’s good to see the JMC hasn’t lost its bite. “Discotheque” sounds like a great time in hell, if hell were poison psychedelics and not searing heat, William repeating “nineteen, 19, 6, 5” for reasons only known to him. There’s plenty of debauchery though, “every type of boy and girl/everyone from worst to best,” so as always, be careful.
There’s a minor leitmotif on the album regarding the juxtaposition of purity and riches (“Pure Poor” and “Silver Strings”), the former a fucked-up dirge, the latter slow as well, though not as aggro. In the tradition of Munki’s “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll,” “The Eagles and the Beatles” is in homage to, mostly, the Rolling Stones. It’s pretty breezy for these guys, even borrowing a little from that other “I Love Rock ‘N Roll,” the Arrows song made famous by Joan Jett (try and forget that the passage in question also sounds at least as much like Weezer’s awful “Beverly Hills”). While he fails to mention the Eagles (a decidedly un-JMC band), Jim does name the Beatles, Sex Pistols, Small Faces, Dylan, and the Beach Boys. But the focus is on the Stones, even namechecking manager Andrew Loog Oldham. It’s about as sentimental as the band gets.
Slow burner “Chemical Animal” might be the most honest song Jim Reid has ever sung: “I fill myself with chemical/To hide the dark shit I don’t show.” Of course, that’s if he’s talking about himself, but it sure sounds autobiographical. The album features two songs where the band references themselves, the aforementioned “Jamcod” and “Second of June.” Though this feels a little like an epitaph record, I don’t think it is.
It’s tough to say where this lands in the discography, but like all worthy music, Glasgow Eyes makes you think, and you’re glad it does, though it may require somewhat frequent returns to fully appreciate. That the Jesus and Mary Chain are exploring different avenues of sound at this late stage and not falling flat on their Scottish arses is itself commendable.
