Yet more Scottish artists, who are really dominating the indie end of the market, probably rebelling against the somewhat packaged synth-pop coming from down South. The core of this band are the Reid brothers Jim and William, both on guitars and Jim on vocals for the most part (William does a few, but I didn’t pick up a discernable difference the first time through). Douglas Hart is bass, and on drums is Bobby Gillespie, shortly before he left to concentrate on Primal Scream.
Basically what The Jesus And Mary Chain do is the same kind of thing that punk bands like X and The Replacements did – take the melodies from Fifties/Sixties pop and turn them grungy. But rather than speed them up and shout, the Reids slow the tunes down and blur them with fuzzy guitar – they're the forerunners of the shoegaze sound and it’s easy to hear their influence on the likes of Ride and Stone Roses (and some lesser known artists like The Darkside or Smashing Orange).
To me, this sounds gorgeous, the kind of thing I was really into in the early Nineties, both ethereal and floaty and dirty and gritty at the same time; I’m really surprised that I never got into these guys at the time but I think I had the impression that they were more hardcore and heavy (which they were before turning to this kind of sound).
It’s hard to pick out a particular track as, to be honest, they all kind of do the same thing. But, it’s a thing I like so that’s fine. Like the punk groups that they spun out from, the tracks on this album are all relatively short, around 2 minutes apiece give or take a handful of seconds, which means that they tend towards offering up a couple of repeats of their melodic refrain and then go home. They’re not a band given to fancy guitar solos or especially complex song structures, but again they deliver a sound that appeals to me so I’m happy to go with it.
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