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[MUSIC] THE SAVAGE ANIMAL
"First Impression of The Jesus and Mary Chain" |
09.21.11 |
BY MIKEY MIGO
It’s time again to expand my musical lexicon. About once a month I’ll take a few hours out of my life to fully take in a band’s work. The bands I go with are ones that I’ve never listened to or given a chance to before. I’ll hear about a band, read tons of hype about a band, or even sometimes only hear a single or two. These bands still manage to stick around and get tons of respect and love. I’ve had the pleasure of giving in and listening to awesome bands like Simon and Garfunkle, The Smiths, Regina Specktor, and others. The experience of listening to a band from studio album to studio album is a fun process. Sometimes it’s not though. Sometimes I’ll run into a band that just sucks the life out of me and makes me miserable for four hours straight. I’m not sure if you’d call me a complete-ist or a masochist. Either way, I’m sharing my first impressions…
Why The Jesus and Mary Chain?
Why not The Jesus and Mary Chain? This is a band that I literally know NOTHING about. I have a guess that they’re grungy alternative rock, but I could be wrong. I know they were at least around in the 90’s. I can’t think of any songs I know that are theirs. I can’t think of any time a friend has said “Man, you should check out this song by The Jesus and Mary Chain!” I can’t think of any time a friend has said “Man, The Jesus and the Mary Chain suck balls!” It’s a band that has existed and seemingly thrived without me ever hearing them. So maybe I’m NOT the center of the universe. I hope they make my painful realization worth it…
Psychocandy
(1985 – 39 minutes) - The album starts off with "Just Like Honey". I just talked up a big hype about not knowing any songs by this band, but I know this one. I’ve heard it somewhere before. One of my favorite movies is “Lost In Translation”. That’s where I know this. It’s a down tempo tune. It sounds like a 90’s song, but it baffles me it’s from 1985. Wow. "The Living End" manages to make nu-wave sound lo-fi. It’s really muddy and it’s catchy. They really rock that muddy alt-rock sounding thing. You can literally hear Seattle’s ears open up in "Taste the Floor", “In A Hole” and "Something's Wrong". There are songs like "The Hardest Walk" that sound a little weird. It sounds like Lou Reed a little. Not sure if that’s a good thing. There is a certain breathy flow to some songs. "Cut Dead" feels like you’re being paddled down a pond in a comfy boat. "Some Candy Talking" does the same, but it’s more of an upbeat tune. "Taste of Cindy" tries to pull this off while still using tons of noise and feedback. It’s an interesting contrast, but I’m not sure if it works for me. "Inside Me" is cool. It reminds me of Bauhaus and Billy Idol. It’s edgy and cool. It’s the type of music they’d listen to in the movie “Lost Boys”. I read that "Never Understand" was a single. I can honestly say I’ve not heard it. It’s a pretty boring poppy upbeat rock song. There’s nothing really to it. "Sowing Seeds", "My Little Underground", and "You Trip Me Up" don’t work for me. It’s hard to really connect with the melody and music. I know it’s making some big point with the noise stuff, but it’s making someone from twenty five years in the future not want to listen. "It's So Hard" is a distant sounding rock track. It’s a really interesting way for the album to end, but it works. It’s weird. The Jesus and Mary Chain get tons of alternative and grunge love, but I never heard much from the industrial rock community about them. They really utilized noise and experimental sounds before their time. In many ways this album is leaps and bounds before it’s time. This was made in 1985. This album was really ahead of its time. There are spots I’m not huge on, but I liked what I overall heard. I’m optimistic going into their other albums…
Darklands
(1987 – 36 minutes) - "Darklands" starts off this 1987 album. It’s a down tempo gloomy song. It’s got a playful melody, but the lyrics and tone are morose. It’s a weird clash. The vocals get really deep and swoony in "Deep One Perfect Morning". It sorta sounds like the song before it, but different vocals. "Happy When It Rains" is a tad too poppy for my liking. I was hoping to find out Garbage’s “I’m Only Happy When It Rains” was a cover, but nope. "Down on Me" follows suit. It’s another pop track. So far into the album, "Nine Million Rainy Days" is my favorite tune off this one. It’s a down tempo, gritty deep vocal, slow burner. The first single off the album was "April Skies". It sounds like a single compared to everything else. It has a brighter disposition and bouncier melody. "Cherry Came Too" sounds like Elvis Costello-lite. I didn’t like Elvis Costello-full. The “a little extra noisy” opening of "On the Wall" has me interested. Sadly, it never really builds to anything or goes anywhere exciting. "About You" is the closest thing on this album to “Just Like Honey”. It’s a good tune and lets the album close on one of the brighter notes. I know they’re classified “indie pop”. I get the pop part, but I wonder if they’re only indie because a major didn’t want it. It’s muddy sounding pop tunes. It’s different. I’ll give it that, but the first album had a lot more balls to it. This sounded really generic. Hopefully this is just the sophomore slump.
Automatic
(1989 – 44 minutes) - While it generally sounds like what the second album gave out, "Here Comes Alice" is a solid opener. There seems to be a sense of edge to the delivery, more rock. I feel like I’ve heard this song before, but I really don’t think I have.
Then is a really silly fist-shaking-montage-having song called "Coast to Coast". I enjoy how the opening of "Blues from a Gun" sounds. It’s got another “I could have sworn I’ve heard this” vibe to it. I enjoy "Between Planets" more than I want to. It’s a catchy pop-rock song. The music portions of "UV Ray" are really cool. They push themselves a little here. They use more noise and more soundscape. It’s probably the most progressive song of their discography at this point since the first album. The vocal delivery is a little annoying, but I’ll take what I can get. It took me this long to notice, but while listening to "Her Way of Praying" I realize the vocals sound like male version of Joan Jett. I’m sure that’s a crazy assessment, but I’m just trying to take in what I’m hearing. I have to have heard "Head On" before. It sounds REALLY familiar. I think this song has crossed my path before. I was ready to ignore "Take It" completely, but they include some really cool and warped break downs that I liked. The lyrics and story of "Halfway to Crazy" is a fun take on it, but it was a little too poppy. "Gimme Hell", while good, sounds like it shouldn’t be on this album. It’s got a gritty blues rock vibe to it with droning feedback and noise. The normal album ended here, but the CD release had two extra songs. "Drop" is a bland acoustic ballad track. "Sunray" has a really intense drum machine beat opening with noise in the background. It sounds like two layers of what would become an early Nine Inch Nails track. Sadly, it goes nowhere and just teases us. This album should have ended with “Gimme Hell”. My ears might be broken, but I have to admit that there are points in the album where it ALMOST sounds like hair-metal. It’s crazy to think this is categorized as “alternative rock” when by today’s standards it’s poppier than the poppiest rock out there. I suppose in relation to the times, it was “different” but it doesn’t sound too much unlike what I’ve heard of the 80’s. This album seemed to be all either “Billy Idol” vocals or “Joan Jett” vocals. Harsh comparisons aside, this album was WAY stronger than the second effort. It gives me a bit more hope heading into the 90s!
Honey’s Dead
(1992 – 42 minutes) - The fourth album. The first album of the 90’s should surely sound advanced right? Let’s find out. The opening track is "Reverence". Instantly I notice the production is better. Musically there is much more edge and the vocals are more in an original delivery. Clearly the best track since the first album and a great start. This is definitely more my cup of tea."Teenage Lust" is a gristly industrial rock track. I can really hear early NIN here. Of note though, Alan Moulder is the engineer on all but one track. That track is handled by Flood. If you’re a fan of NIN then you should know those names already. Then the album shifts into a more pop-rock direction with "Far Gone and Out" and "Almost Gold". "Sugar Ray" is a bad ass song and cooler than the band of the same name. "Tumbledown" goes in one ear and out the other. "Catchfire" is an interesting track. I wouldn’t say a “good track”, but interesting. It reminds me of every rock genre from the late 80’s and early 90’s all at once. I’m not sure it works. The breathy and down tempo track "Good for My Soul" only goes about half way towards the direction I was hoping for. It never picks up steam in the right ways. "Rollercoaster" should have been the title of this album. It’s a rollercoaster of tones and style. At one point, I’m rocking out and then I’m annoyed by the pop stuff. This song is one of the more poppier tunes. Same for "I Can't Get Enough". Nothing here for me. Finally, "Sundown", a song of substance, comes on. It’s a down tempo song, but it lingers on way too long. The album closes out with "Frequency". This is basically lyrics from the first track just clearer and barely over a minute. It’s not that I don’t like pop music, but cliché stuff is never on my playlist. The pop stuff on this album was really hard to swallow. The more industrial and rock side of the album was really cool.
Stoned & Dethroned
(1994 – 48 minutes) - We find ourselves in 1994. It’s right in the middle of the grunge stuff and these guys were one of the unheralded pioneers. They got big tours, did Lollapalooza, and were getting a good amount of attention. Their fifth album opens up with an open and folky "Dirty Water". It’s a slow ride and it sounds good. "Bullet Lovers" comes off almost as a ballad, but it’s a pretty gory description if so. It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s well done. On "Sometimes Always" we get a duet with the woman from Mazzy Starr. It’s a pleasant enough song. "Come On" feels like filler. The words “yeah, baby c’mon!” aren’t strong lyrics no matter how ironic or pretentious you try to be with it. "Between Us" is a happy grunge song. "Hole" is a slow brooding rock tune. I like it, but it’s only 2:16. That’s a problem on this album. Lots of short songs. Some that could be really good and then some bad, but we don’t get a chance to really attach ourselves to any of them. I like the simplicity of "Never Saw It Coming". For what these guys were doing at this point in their run, this song just works. "She" has solid music, but the vocals don’t feel right on it. I really like the full song of "Wish I Could" compared to the rest of the album. It’s a song you can get lost in. "Save Me" is a fun grunge-twang kind of track. The opening of "Till It Shines" is pretty jarring, but it’s a solid head nodder. It’s kind of catchy and I would think it could have been a good single. I like it at least. "God Help Me" has a good guitar melody, but the song goes nowhere. "Girlfriend" has a good guitar melody, but this time the song has something to nod your head along to. "Everybody I Know" came and went without me paying attention enough to type a sentence. At this point this album has become background noise and my mind has drifted into other things I need to do. That doesn’t change with "You've Been a Friend"… or "These Days"… or "Feeling Lucky", the last track. I’ll be fair enough to the last one though. “Feeling Lucky” is a much better song than most of the stuff on here. At least the know to finish strong. There is a certain country twang to this album. Maybe it’s folksier or something, but it didn’t feel as impactful as the others. It’s almost as if since the alternative at the time became the mainstream that they tried to go a completely different direction. It’s stripped down and I appreciate the chance they took here, but I just wasn’t feeling this album at all.
Munki
(1998 – 69 minutes) - The Jesus and Mary Chain ended up making six albums. This would be the last of their studio albums. They broke up not too long after this album and then would return in 2007 for some reunion stuff. Amazing enough, this album actually came out when I was in high school. Barely. "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" is the first track on the album. It’s a poppy song for sure. It’s really upbeat and sounds sorta like the “Onders” from the movie “The Thing That You Do!” Compliment? You decide. I like the progression heard on "Birthday". It’s the evolution we should have heard after the first two albums. "Stardust Remedy" has a full sound, but it feels really artificial. "Fizzy" has a good bounce to it, but the vocals and music is a bit mumbled and muddy. "Moe Tucker" is sung by a woman credited as “Vanilla Sister”. It’s not my cup of tea. It sounds like the beginning of pop-punk. I thought I was done enjoying this band at this point. I’ve been judging them basically on “it sounds good… for THEM”, but I REALLY enjoyed "Perfume". The sound layers are really impressive and the composition rocks. "Virtually Unreal" attempts the same thing, but it doesn’t pan out. The droney Def Leppard sounding vocals suck the life out of the interesting music. I like the music on "Degenerate" and the vocals don’t completely annoy me so it’s a winner. I really like the guitar riff used here. Vocals are hidden in the pending surf-rock loop of "Cracking Up" I swear. It’s just not really worth listening to prove me right or not. The opening and building of "Commercial" is pretty cool. It’s over seven minutes long though. Surprisingly I enjoyed the journey it took my ears on. It’s a really solid jam session and there are some really cool layers. I like "Supertramp" a lot too. It’s a noisy rock track, but they get the noise just right. It’s a whirl-wind of awe. That is followed up by a down tempo acoustic jam in "Never Understood". I find myself getting into it. I like it. "I Can't Find the Time for Times" loses me a little. It’s a little poppy and the vocals are bothersome. "Man on the Moon" is another good slower tempo tune. The wailing of the guitar is pretty special. "Black" and "Dream Lover" are more of the same pop rock stuff. Where the opening track was a bit happier, "I Hate Rock 'n' Roll" takes it to the other extreme. It’s a rock out assault with tons of noise, snark, and anger. All in all, this album was probably one of their better albums.
THE VERDICT
(1983 – 1999, 2007 – ) - Well, now I know. The only song I can honestly say that I’ve heard FOR SURE before today was the very first track “Just Like Honey”. The rest was all new to me. I can hear why people loved this band. The first album is a huge precursor to indie and grunge. Then they went a weird poppy route and had trouble with keeping a real identity. There were still glimpses of genius and some stuff I really liked, but all in all outside of about a dozen songs I really doubt I’ll go out of my way to ever really sit down and listen to this band again. This band’s first album came out when I was three, twenty five years later certain styles and genres aren’t going to connect with me. Sadly, this was one of them. Do I respect their work? For sure. Is it for me? Not really.
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