Saviours of the Month
Uncut
06.1998
06.1998
The Jesus And Mary Chain
MUNKI
Creation ****
Sixth album, and a return to form by prodigal scuzz duo.
After 13 years as major label anti-heros, Jim and William Reid have returned to their original home, Creation. While such backward steps often signal creative bankruptcy, Munki finds the Brothers Grim turning full circle and reviving their own garage-punk roots with renewed vigour.
All their previous incarnations - abrasive noise terrorists, unplugged doom balladeers, Wagnerian techno goths, born-again country strummers - are acknowledged here, but the dominant thrust is scuffed-up classic rock with all guns blazing.
It's a terrific 70-minute, 17-track sprawl which gives these emperors a supercharged sex'n'death riffola a mighty second wind. "Cracking Up" is a case in point, a revved-up sneer of misfit attitude and easily the roughest sounding JAMC single for eons. "Supertramp" roars along like a feedback drenched version of The Monkees while "Stardust Remedy" and "Dream Lover" are archetypal three-chord car-crash anthems.
Crucially, there is no hint of self-parody in these familiar moves, and emphatically no sense of dead horses being flogged. Even though the album is waggishly book-ended by Jims' "I Love Rock'N'Roll" and Williams' "I Hate Rock'N'Roll", the duo have rarely sounded so shamelessly intoxicated by gale-force guitars.
Which might explain the warm melodic undertow of tracks such as "Fizzy" and "Dream Lover", both key gems from the Teenage Fanclub school of weary-voiced fuzzbox classicism.
There is also fractious trip hop and droning cyber-blues here, but the Reids keep turning to amped-up sleazoid rumbling.
With Munki, The Jesus And Mary Chain finally become their own genre, timeless and unassailable and seamlessly integrated into the pentheon of rock'n'roll inconography they once seemed intent on trashing.
In more ways than one, they have come home.
MUNKI
Creation ****
Sixth album, and a return to form by prodigal scuzz duo.
After 13 years as major label anti-heros, Jim and William Reid have returned to their original home, Creation. While such backward steps often signal creative bankruptcy, Munki finds the Brothers Grim turning full circle and reviving their own garage-punk roots with renewed vigour.
All their previous incarnations - abrasive noise terrorists, unplugged doom balladeers, Wagnerian techno goths, born-again country strummers - are acknowledged here, but the dominant thrust is scuffed-up classic rock with all guns blazing.
It's a terrific 70-minute, 17-track sprawl which gives these emperors a supercharged sex'n'death riffola a mighty second wind. "Cracking Up" is a case in point, a revved-up sneer of misfit attitude and easily the roughest sounding JAMC single for eons. "Supertramp" roars along like a feedback drenched version of The Monkees while "Stardust Remedy" and "Dream Lover" are archetypal three-chord car-crash anthems.
Crucially, there is no hint of self-parody in these familiar moves, and emphatically no sense of dead horses being flogged. Even though the album is waggishly book-ended by Jims' "I Love Rock'N'Roll" and Williams' "I Hate Rock'N'Roll", the duo have rarely sounded so shamelessly intoxicated by gale-force guitars.
Which might explain the warm melodic undertow of tracks such as "Fizzy" and "Dream Lover", both key gems from the Teenage Fanclub school of weary-voiced fuzzbox classicism.
There is also fractious trip hop and droning cyber-blues here, but the Reids keep turning to amped-up sleazoid rumbling.
With Munki, The Jesus And Mary Chain finally become their own genre, timeless and unassailable and seamlessly integrated into the pentheon of rock'n'roll inconography they once seemed intent on trashing.
In more ways than one, they have come home.
