The Jesus and Mary Chain’s 1984 debut single, “Upside Down,” turned the UK indie scene upside down with its then-novel approach of taking a Phil Spector-eque pop song and wrapping it in pummeling noise and feedback. It also put Creation Records on the map, paving the way for House of Love, My Bloody Valentine, Ride and many more of the label’s most famous groups. JAMC made the leap to Warner Bros immediately after this single but Creation founder Alan McGee stayed the band’s manager, and JAMC quickly became alt-rock stars. By the late-’90s, though, Jim and William Reid felt chewed up and spit out by the music industry and weren’t getting along with each other so well, either. If Warner had lost interest in the band after five albums, McGee had not, and welcomed the Reids back to Creation Records with open arms. Bookended by the supercatchy “I Love Rock N’ Roll” and tinnitus-inducing “I Hate Rock N‘ Roll,” the sprawling, 17-track “Munki” plays like a career retrospective, including buzzsaw pop, semi-acoustic numbers, duets with Hope Sandoval, and dissonant noise jams. Munki served as a great final word on the JAMC...till they reformed and made a new album 19 years later.
The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Sub Pop label debut, “Munki”, is schizophrenic and impassioned, a record that both summarizes the band’s career to date and cleans the slate for their future. Virtually each of the 17 tracks here echoes a prior moment in the Chain’s existence, moving at breakneck pace from the volcanic noise of their earliest material to the bleak grace of “Darklands”, through to the sleek, supercharged pop of “Automatic” . In a sense, it’s an ideal primer to the Reid brothers’ mercurial world, flirting with both brilliance and mediocrity; even after well over a decade, the Jesus and Mary Chain continue to thrill, irritate, and confound — they’re a true love/hate obsession.
This and the “Stoned and Dethroned” editions sound fabulous in their Demon incarnations. Definitely adds depth to the wonderful album that is “Munki”. (But you should also pick up the deluxe CD version from 2011 – The B-Sides are excellent.)
The Fat Angel Sings 