Stoned and Dethroned
Craig Mathieson / Juice
10.1994
10.1994
Jesus & Mary Chain
Stoned & Dethroned
Blanco Y Negro/Warner Bros.
***
Ten years after their debut, Psycho-candy, announced that there was a whole new vista to pop music if you accepted feedback as art, perennial Scottish teen guitar terrorists Jim and William Reid have neatly dispelled the growing sense of ennui within their work by stepping back in time. Where previously their appreciation of rock's history was specific - the Stooges' psychosis, the Velvet Unground's sonic squall, Suicide's repetition - the sound on Stoned & Dethroned is soaked up with gilded echoes.
Reference points: The Byrds circa the static electricity of "Everybody's Been Burned;" the tremulous guitar from the shadows of country rock at its more dissipated heart; the Stones in the freefall of their '70s decadence, with Keef nodding off on junk and then jerking awake to drive the rhythm; a taciturn Robbie Robertson on amphetamines.
If this sounds like revisionism, then yes, that's partly what this album is. The brothers' Reid trademark distortion is grounded, replaced by a mix of acoustic rhythms and hard jangle guitar. The framework is still apparent: simple pop songs about girlfriends, drugs and anything else adolescence can encompass, sung in the sidewalking drawl of William. But after a period of musical history where every indie new kid on the block knew about the powers of white guitar noise, the Mary Chain - who started it all - have changed.
The immediate highpoint is "Sometimes Always," where the ghost of "Wichita Linesman" is resurrected in a duet with Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star, while "She" ends with a slowburn of instrumentation edging up on each other, picking out subtleties. The collective tone is relaxed and immediate - hummable melodies and no songs over four minutes (although 17 songs in itself is excessive). The Jesus & Mary Chain have made their simplest record yet (with echoes of their second album, Darklands), but it may prove to be one of their more enduring.
Stoned & Dethroned
Blanco Y Negro/Warner Bros.
***
Ten years after their debut, Psycho-candy, announced that there was a whole new vista to pop music if you accepted feedback as art, perennial Scottish teen guitar terrorists Jim and William Reid have neatly dispelled the growing sense of ennui within their work by stepping back in time. Where previously their appreciation of rock's history was specific - the Stooges' psychosis, the Velvet Unground's sonic squall, Suicide's repetition - the sound on Stoned & Dethroned is soaked up with gilded echoes.
Reference points: The Byrds circa the static electricity of "Everybody's Been Burned;" the tremulous guitar from the shadows of country rock at its more dissipated heart; the Stones in the freefall of their '70s decadence, with Keef nodding off on junk and then jerking awake to drive the rhythm; a taciturn Robbie Robertson on amphetamines.
If this sounds like revisionism, then yes, that's partly what this album is. The brothers' Reid trademark distortion is grounded, replaced by a mix of acoustic rhythms and hard jangle guitar. The framework is still apparent: simple pop songs about girlfriends, drugs and anything else adolescence can encompass, sung in the sidewalking drawl of William. But after a period of musical history where every indie new kid on the block knew about the powers of white guitar noise, the Mary Chain - who started it all - have changed.
The immediate highpoint is "Sometimes Always," where the ghost of "Wichita Linesman" is resurrected in a duet with Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star, while "She" ends with a slowburn of instrumentation edging up on each other, picking out subtleties. The collective tone is relaxed and immediate - hummable melodies and no songs over four minutes (although 17 songs in itself is excessive). The Jesus & Mary Chain have made their simplest record yet (with echoes of their second album, Darklands), but it may prove to be one of their more enduring.
