The epic news is that The Jesus And Mary Chain are about to release new album, Damage And Joy, after nearly nineteen year out of the record studio. We haven’t been this excited about a new album in a long time, and the good news doesn’t end there as the Reid brothers et al have also confirmed that they’ll be throwing a UK tour into the bag of brilliance they’ve got planned for 2017, so get yourself set for a whole lot of fuzzed up alt-rock and indie pop.
Release date
The album will be out on CD, double heavy LP, cassette and digital download with a release date of the 24th March 2017. There’s also a whole host of Damage And Joy bundles and merchandise on the Jesus And Mary Chain store, including signed photography, lyric sheets, t-shirts and badge packs. You can also pick up tickets to the tour, with prices around the £28 mark, plus a £2.80 booking fee.
Singles
The opening single from the album is called Amputation and as it’s the first new material we’ve heard from the band in a very long time, there’s a lot riding on it. However, as you’d expect with so many years in the wilds of Scotland, it’s honed to perfection to set up what’s looking like a stunning return for the band next year.
The intro is disturbingly cool, continuing to varying degrees throughout the rest of the song which blurs between alt and noise rock directions. The vocals are laid back and the guitars are scattered with digestive biscuit crumbs, hob nob remnants and hazelnut shards. There’s more than a little psychedelia in the mix too.
Damage And Joy tracklist:
1. Amputation
2. War On Peace
3. All Things Pass
4. Always Sad
5. Song For A Secret
6. The Two Of Us
7. Los Feliz (Blues And Greens)
8. Mood Rider
9. Presidici (Et Chapaquiditch)
10. Get On Home
11. Facing Up To The Facts
12. Simian Split
13. Black And Blues
14. Can’t Stop The Rock
Damage And Joy tour
There aren’t that many dates for the Jesus And Mary Chain UK Damage And Joy tour, so you might want to move fairly rapidly to get tickets. There’s eleven venue stopoffs along the way, so if you don’t live in close se proximity to one of them you may have to dust off your own tour bus to catch them.
2017 UK tour dates:
23rd March – Northumbria University
24th March – Glasgow 6 Music Festival25th March – Manchester Academy
27th March – Leeds Church
28th March – Leicester O2 Academy
29th March – Bristol O2 Academy
31st March – Birmingham O2 Institute
1st April – Bourn2mouth O2 Academy
2nd April – Oxford O2 Academy
3rd April – Cambridge Junction
5th April – London O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
6th April – Bexhill-By-Sea, De La Warr Pavilion
8th April – Limelight 1, Belfast
First impressions
If Amputation is a good indication of what the rest of the album is going to be like then all signs are pointing towards another landmark moment for The Jesus And Mary Chain. We’re pretty big fans of the band, so we were always going to be pretty positive about anything new from the brothers Reid. For anyone reading this that somehow doesn’t know much about the band and why Damage And Joy is such a big deal, it’s like the Catalina Wine Mixer of the 2017 new music schedule. For anyone still confused, you’re beyond our reach – go thee into the wasteland and trouble us no more.
The album artwork didn’t instantly grab us, but when the fog of our own confusion dropped into the valley of realisation, we twigged pretty quickly (eight hours after seeing it for the first time!) how much we like it. If it doesn’t make you rush out to grab a tin of Alphabetti Spaghetti then you’re probably susceptible to Cordyceps mutations, verrucas and athlete’s foot. It’s like a magic eye puzzle that makes you look away because it initially looks a bit grim, but when you work it out it becomes all you want to look at.
