The Jesus and Mary Chain review – Psychocandy revival exposes lack of innovation beneath the feedback

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/20/jesus-mary-chain-review-troxy

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The Jesus and Mary Chain were always defined by their notoriety. In 1985, when their 15-minute gigs would frequently collapse into riots and their excitable manager, Alan McGee, was defining them as “art as terrorism”, they seemed to be more a happening than a rock’n’roll band.

That year also brought their most brilliant act of agent-provocateur sabotage – their debut album, Psychocandy, its 15 fragile shards of pop melodicism set within towering walls of brittle feedback. The band have in recent years declined all offers to tour the record, feeling it was too closely linked to the febrile, anarchic atmosphere of those early gigs. Tonight, they are finally playing it – but not straight away. “We were going to play Psychocandy, then do other songs as an encore,” says singer Jim Reid. “But that seemed a wee bit presumptuous, so we’re going to do the encore first.”

This later-career material is actually the most enjoyable part of the night’s set. April Skies, their 1987 top 10 hit, remains a fantastic pop song, a sliver of divinely melodic 60s pop trapped in a lustrous surface glow. Reid’s brother William lurks deep within the shadows at the back of the stage and tidily dials down the feedback and distortion on Some Candy Talking, all hanging chords and glacial pauses.

The mood switches and darkens after a short break when they return to play Psychocandy. The Mary Chain’s early musical touchstones were the Velvet Underground and the Stooges, and both are hugely audible beneath the surface thrash of The Living End and Taste the Floor. Inside Me, as ever, feels only one chord shift away from morphing into Iggy’s I Wanna be Your Dog.

Yet almost 30 years on, it is clear how profoundly Psychocandy was a triumph of youthful attitude over ability. Unlike My Bloody Valentine, on whom they were a huge influence, the Mary Chain were never truly experimental: they just loved turning everything to 11, and draping swathes of feedback over their classicist songs.

This works on gems such as You Trip Me Up, where a great Motown tune peeps out from the haze of reverb. Too many other tracks sound distinctly one-trick-pony as they sink into a welter of white noise. It occurs that the Jesus and Mary Chain are a decent wee pop band with a few clever gimmicks. Maybe they always were.

• Tonight, Manchester Academy (0161-275 4278) then touring.