Resurrection: The Reid brothers' apocalyptic second coming
Andrew Perry / Select
05.1992
05.1992
THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
Honey's Dead
Blanco Y Negro
Anyone who mixes screaming feedback guitar, juddering hip hop beat action and some weird Yankophile spiel about "dying on a bed of spikes," and then gets it into the Top Ten.... Precious few groups could even come up with something as God-forsaken and even fewer would be cool enough to call it 'Reverence'. The Mary Chain have been this far out all along, though, since the spectacularly influential and riot-provoking days of 1984, and it's heart stopping to see them back, by popular demand, to where they belong--the pop charts.
It has been far too long (five years) since 'Some Candy Talking' and 'April Skies' stabbed to the heart of Top of the Pops. Those were overtly saccharined wannabe-hits, too, and once Messrs Reid & Reid got around to bringing the serious noise again on their grossly neglected third LP, 'Automatic', they stiffed commercially. Their 'Psychocandy' debut was sewing up all the Album Of The Decade awards, but the chaps themselves were being outmaneuvered noise-wise, quotes-wise and sales-wise by Ride, the Valentines and their old drummer Bobby Gillespie's Primal Scream. Was a miraculous Mary Chain rebirth something to be expected?
Well, maybe the Rollercoaster jamboree has boosted their cred factor, or the general axe-attack revival has found a new place on the map for them. Whatever, the times have come back around to the Mary Chain at the best possible juncture, on the eve of their biggest, baddest, bitchingest album so far. 'Honey's Dead' should sell in shitloads. It's monstrous.
It's not that Jim and William have altered their vision. The ingredients remain the same--those blues riffs churned up from Bo Diddley records; all that aching palaver ridden with Jesus-suck-sun-TV-sick-sex-black-USA imagery. On their own, the elements aren't even that original. It's more a case of how they're assembled into each massive slab of sound, and here are 12 gems, almost every one a potential single, like they've distilled everything they've ever done into one perfectly tuned LP. And check out the surprisingly huge rhythm section, boosted by Curve's drummer Steve Monti--way meaner than the tinny drum machine on 'Automatic'.
And unlike 'Automatic', some gorgeously melancholic slowies surface here, mostly sung by William. 'Almost Gold' evokes a shimmering, love-spent sadness only hinted at in the past, mirrored on Side Two by 'Sundown', which ascends to a white noise coda and a chin-up message of "shine on." 'Good For My Soul' also finds exquisite peace with its two-chord strum. Nobody can say Bill's a totally miserable bugger after hearing this one. And, of course, the Reids have their home-turf fuzz pop base well covered. 'Far Gone And Out', 'Tumbledown" and 'I Can't Get Enough' hook you with a handful of melodic strains apiece--plain brilliant songs.
When the going gets demented, though, the real blow-aways occur. 'Sugar Ray' has the sweetest refrain, surrounded by clanking rhythm pile-ups and what seems like all the feedback off Lou Reed's 'Metal Machine Music' condensed into less than five squealing minutes. 'Catchfire' too is simply astonishing, wads of wah-wah soaring through a cacophonous drone. And the slow, thrusting 'Teenage Lust'. Is it about sex? Drugs? Our old chum rock 'n' roll? One listen and you know it's all three.
Who cares anyway? The Mary Chain shuffle their pack of hallowed traditions and, every time, they end up on top. Hell, they finish jamming a low-key 'Reverence' ("I wanna die...") and tack on the famous last words of 'Roadrunner' ("with the radio on!"). 'Honey's Dead' is 1992's album for the road, the beach, the roof party. Whatever you do this summer, you'll be playing it.
5 (out of 5) stars
Honey's Dead
Blanco Y Negro
Anyone who mixes screaming feedback guitar, juddering hip hop beat action and some weird Yankophile spiel about "dying on a bed of spikes," and then gets it into the Top Ten.... Precious few groups could even come up with something as God-forsaken and even fewer would be cool enough to call it 'Reverence'. The Mary Chain have been this far out all along, though, since the spectacularly influential and riot-provoking days of 1984, and it's heart stopping to see them back, by popular demand, to where they belong--the pop charts.
It has been far too long (five years) since 'Some Candy Talking' and 'April Skies' stabbed to the heart of Top of the Pops. Those were overtly saccharined wannabe-hits, too, and once Messrs Reid & Reid got around to bringing the serious noise again on their grossly neglected third LP, 'Automatic', they stiffed commercially. Their 'Psychocandy' debut was sewing up all the Album Of The Decade awards, but the chaps themselves were being outmaneuvered noise-wise, quotes-wise and sales-wise by Ride, the Valentines and their old drummer Bobby Gillespie's Primal Scream. Was a miraculous Mary Chain rebirth something to be expected?
Well, maybe the Rollercoaster jamboree has boosted their cred factor, or the general axe-attack revival has found a new place on the map for them. Whatever, the times have come back around to the Mary Chain at the best possible juncture, on the eve of their biggest, baddest, bitchingest album so far. 'Honey's Dead' should sell in shitloads. It's monstrous.
It's not that Jim and William have altered their vision. The ingredients remain the same--those blues riffs churned up from Bo Diddley records; all that aching palaver ridden with Jesus-suck-sun-TV-sick-sex-black-USA imagery. On their own, the elements aren't even that original. It's more a case of how they're assembled into each massive slab of sound, and here are 12 gems, almost every one a potential single, like they've distilled everything they've ever done into one perfectly tuned LP. And check out the surprisingly huge rhythm section, boosted by Curve's drummer Steve Monti--way meaner than the tinny drum machine on 'Automatic'.
And unlike 'Automatic', some gorgeously melancholic slowies surface here, mostly sung by William. 'Almost Gold' evokes a shimmering, love-spent sadness only hinted at in the past, mirrored on Side Two by 'Sundown', which ascends to a white noise coda and a chin-up message of "shine on." 'Good For My Soul' also finds exquisite peace with its two-chord strum. Nobody can say Bill's a totally miserable bugger after hearing this one. And, of course, the Reids have their home-turf fuzz pop base well covered. 'Far Gone And Out', 'Tumbledown" and 'I Can't Get Enough' hook you with a handful of melodic strains apiece--plain brilliant songs.
When the going gets demented, though, the real blow-aways occur. 'Sugar Ray' has the sweetest refrain, surrounded by clanking rhythm pile-ups and what seems like all the feedback off Lou Reed's 'Metal Machine Music' condensed into less than five squealing minutes. 'Catchfire' too is simply astonishing, wads of wah-wah soaring through a cacophonous drone. And the slow, thrusting 'Teenage Lust'. Is it about sex? Drugs? Our old chum rock 'n' roll? One listen and you know it's all three.
Who cares anyway? The Mary Chain shuffle their pack of hallowed traditions and, every time, they end up on top. Hell, they finish jamming a low-key 'Reverence' ("I wanna die...") and tack on the famous last words of 'Roadrunner' ("with the radio on!"). 'Honey's Dead' is 1992's album for the road, the beach, the roof party. Whatever you do this summer, you'll be playing it.
5 (out of 5) stars
