On the ten-year anniversary of their reformation, The Jesus And Mary Chain finally reveal the fruit of their recent efforts – a record indebted to The Stooges and Velvet Underground, reaching deep into the past and returning with only a taste of what once was.
“I once shone but now I’m old,” drones vocalist Jim Reid in ‘War On Peace’, as his brother William stares balefully at his shoes – the pedals are the same, just worn down. Damage And Joy channels all the acid-washed apathy of J&MC’s early cuts, but with producer Youth firmly yanking every slider into safe, accessible stoner-rock parameters. All the danger and promise of Psychocandy has long since eroded.
As the now-55-year-old Reid cries for his 24-year-old self, he entertains a handful of sultry young women contributing additional vocals, each sounding like he’s fed from their veins to sustain himself. Isobel Campbell channels an over-Xanaxed Julee Cruise in ‘Song For A Secret’ following Bernadette Denning’s miserably forgettable contribution to ‘Always Sad’, and Sky Ferreira’s meatier contribution can’t make ‘Black And Blues’ a compelling listen.
Ageing is Reid’s lyrical preoccupation, drug use and lust merely habitual. Then there’s the sneering pop-cultural derision fired at truly bizarre targets (“Chicken-Fried Rice is a bad, bad song”), and a desperate attempt at courting controversy on bottom-of-the-barrel track ‘Simian Split’ that fails to raise a single hackle (“I killed Kurt Cobain / I put the shot right through his brain”).
Focusing on the lyrics reinforces how lacking in hook or complexity the instrumental side of the album is. When Reid opines that he’s “a rock‘n’roll amputation”, he unconsciously paints Damage And Joy as a phantom limb, waving languorously where once noise-pop’s pioneers stood.
