Jesus and Mary Chain – Damage and Joy (ADA / Warner Music March 24th, 2017)

Jesus and Mary Chain debuted with “Upside Down” a little delight to 45″, full of feedback that collided with a cavernous voice full of echo and bubble gum melodies. All supported by the implacable and minimal Bobby Gillespie snare. It was an actualization of the Velvet Underground’s White Noise, nothing new but pleasant.
Then a very fast decline, as if to instill doubt that the balance of that first realization was due more to chance than to a well-defined artistic project. A series of indecent albums and then the withdrawal of the company name to appear in various forms, the Reid brothers each on his own to do damage with their lack of creativity.
Now, after eighteen years the Jesus and Mary Chain are back with another useless record.
The rock, in its myriad incarnations, and as long as it existed, was rebellion, denial, opposition. It is a form of expression to be respected and that can be handled as long as you still have pimples. When you exceed your acne problem, it is better to get out, to continue would only falsehood, dryness and repetition of patterns and worn insights.
What sense does it make a record when you are old, ugly, fat, and with an obvious lack of inspiration? Who should hear a record like that? How many grandparents will buy it? The boomers still buy records? What is this record that re tired old formulas and inconsistent arrangements? Should it advocate the clash of generations? Grandfather who rebels against his nephew that imposes him, in spite of himself, the latest Get Physical outfit played throttle in the bedroom? Is it time already to rock the geriatric? The population has aged so much?
It is an inhomogeneous work, even with ridiculous attempts to emulate duets of the ’60s, a material that looks picked up from previous solo experiences of the two.
It is an embarrassing and depressing record that you know how it turns out from the first moment you put it on the turntable.
Now there are new standards, young bands surfing the noise over the feedback, the echo and the drone.
Anyway, if in 1977 a band had  realized an album sounding like the 30 years before music, how many spittings and bottles would take?
The Clash sang “No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones in 1977”.
No more time for Jesus and Mary Chain in 2017.

Rating: 0/10

Schoolboy Johnny Duhamel