Seeps into thy psyche - Extremely cohesive collection of songs - the lyrics mean a lot to folks who ve been there. One way to describe this album is compare it to one of Hitchcock s movies. Fans of JAMC know they can go off like a bomb at any second and this album is so restrained they develop a tension that is wonderful, the definition of suspense. Meanwhile the songs are piercing in a country genre way. Full of intuition. Very worthy indeed. Lyrics to impress Johnny Cash fans and songs that have an earthy realism
William s mellow album - What a surprise after JMC s powerful Honey s Dead! It s almost as if the Reid s realized they probably couldn t match that album, so, with the help of a terrific rhythm section (Ben Lurie on bass, Steve Monti on drums), they mellowed out their sound to give us the fine Stoned and Dethroned.What s interesting here is that, for the first time, we know which Reid brother wrote which song. Since S&D contains virtually wall-to-wall softer, more melodic songs, one can expect William to be the greater influence, and, indeed, he wrote more than twice as many songs on the album as did brother Jim. We can also look back and guess which brother wrote which songs on the previous albums. For instance, the grungy Teenage Lust, (Hole on S&D sounds basically the same) and the propulsive Sugar Ray are classic Jim, whereas the melodic Catchfire and Almost Gold, surely belong to William.S&D really consists of no weak songs, which is pretty amazing since there are seventeen of them. But if I had to name my favorites, they would be the Sonny and Cher like Sometimes Always (with the lovely Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star), Between Us, She, These Days, and the effervescent Girlfriend. Stoned and Dethroned may be a departure from the typical JMC sound (more William than Jim), but it s certainly a welcome and successful one.
Depends on your mood - A wiseguy reviewer I once read said the Jesus & Mary Chain made two types of music - music for those smoking dope, and for those on crack. It does capture a bit of the disparity in their music, with highly melodic, tuneful musings that (almost) belong on pop radio on one hand, to much edgier and grinding riffs on the other. Running with that analogy, this album falls into the pot-smoking portion of the band s catalog, more in the spirit of Darklands than of Automatic or some of their 80 s efforts. I found this album fantastic, a continuous stream of mellow acoustic songs each of which are winners. The album had a minor radio hit with the duet Sometimes Always - that said, it is probably one of the most under-appreciated albums of the 90 s given how good it is from top to bottom. Artistic is the word that comes to mind to describe the lush melodies on rueful lyrics that permeate this album.
The best album nobody ever listened to - Since no more than a smattering of people will ever buy this album, much less arrive at the Amazon reviews page and actually read the reviews, why am I bothering to write this? Passion I guess. This is one of my favorite albums of all time, and I get inspired when listening to it. I have to make my testimonial to the JAMC, and in particular to their later work.The whole album is fantastic, all the way through, and I am particular to tracks 16 & 17. The music has it s own identity, but it is perhaps most derivative of the earlier, but not earliest, rolling stones. Early 70 s stones, where they had settled into an identity and played stripped down rock and roll. But this record has a more soulful and spiritual bent which shows a melancholy maturity and reflects a life-experience that transcends anything the stones ever did. God Help Me and You ve Been a Friend are prime examples. A plug for Hope Sandoval from Mazzy Star on track 3. She steals the show, and is an appropriate addition to the album, as she stands, in this writers opinion, as another grossly underheard artist. And the guitar playing on this album...listen to the end of Till it Shines, or Feeling Lucky...and it should speak for itself.
A great mellow album! - I ve been a J&MC fan for a long time now and I enjoy all of their albums but this one is very special because all the songs are good and there are great guitar playing and strong song writing in this album. My fav is girlfriend but I like the whole album. It does need more hard stuff on this to make it more dynamic but if you want to listen to skeleton pop/rock with good acoustic playing, this album is for you. The lyrics are negative like in all of their albums, but it makes the album more stronger due to the acoustic/country-tinged/rock playing that you can feel the emotions in the music and the lyrics. Like all of J&MC albums, it takes a while to fully appreciate the greatness of their songs. Too bad that suck as a live band, otherwise, they would have been more popular. This band will be in the future the greatest band that didn t get any recognition in the last 20 years of the 20th century.