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Barbed Wire Kisses
$16.99 LP
Sound of Speed
$16.99 LP
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THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
Barbed Wire Kisses
(1972 Recordings)
THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
The Sound of Speed
(1972 Recordings)
Any enthusiast of the Jesus and Mary Chain already knows that these two compilations of singles, B-sides and outtakes contain some of the band's best music, even if none of these recordings were ever included on any of their proper full-lengths. When first released in 1988, Barbed Wire Kisses seemed to undo the tamer production of JAMC's second album, Darklands, from the year before, much of this collection playing like a scrappier, hot-wired Psychocandy. Of course, many of the tracks are taken from the band's earliest years, including "Upside Down," the group's seminal Creation-issued debut single from 1984, and the feedback-strewn "Just Like Honey" B-side, "Head," along with an acoustic version of "Taste of Cindy." Surprisingly, the demo of Darklands' "On the Wall" seems more early New Order than Mary Chain, all spaciously produced with icy guitars chiming atop the stiff drum-machine rhythm, yet it's pretty cool to hear this side of the band. Most fans would probably agree that "Sidewalking" alone is worth the price of admission here, though, with a thick wall of their white-noise piled on top of a swaggering glam-rock groove, and the searing Beach Boys ode "Kill Surf City" is almost as essential. Speaking of, the band delivers a blistering cover of "Surfin' USA," and also offers a sinister take on the Bo Diddley classic "Who Do You Love" (later, Barbed Wire Kisses closes out with another nod to the rock 'n' roll godfather by way of the Reid brother-penned "Bo Diddley Is God"), and a live recording of the group playing Can's "Mushroom."
The Sound of Speed might not be as loaded as Barbed Wire Kisses, but at the time of its release in 1993, there was plenty to grab the interest of fans who might have been let down by the more polished direction of '89's Automatic and '92's Honey's Dead. Spanning '89 to '93, this compilation collects most of the B-sides from those aforementioned albums (noticeably absent, however, are "I'm Glad I Never," "In the Black," "Subway" and "Terminal Beach"). The highlight of this set is arguably "Snakedriver," all sleazy, bluesy snarl, and the same can also be said about "Write Record Release Blues," a gritty, charging romp which finds the Reid brothers taking a rabid bite off the hand that feeds. Elsewhere, the group sports their Suicide influence on their sleeves during "Penetration," while the "radio mix" of "Reverence" isn't exactly radio friendly, with this version being far more menacing than the original and drawn out to over five-and-a-half minutes. In contrast, B-side ballads like "Why'd You Want Me" and "Break Me Down" act as a preview for the acoustic-tinged Stoned & Dethroned full-length which would soon follow. Of course, JAMC's choice of covers were always great, and here the band doesn't disappoint for the most part, putting their needle-in-the-red stamp on Jerry Reed ("Guitarman"), Leonard Cohen ("Tower of Song") and Willie Dixon ("Little Red Rooster"). Admittedly, their drum machine-driven take on the 13th Floor Elevator's "Reverberation" is cool but fairly uninspired, and the stripped-down version of "My Girl" doesn't do much more than elicit a smile followed by a yawn. Bringing the album to a full-circle close, the Reid bros revisit Barbed Wire Kisses' "Sidewalking," extending it out to almost eight-minutes and muddying it up even more than the original mix, as if to give the listener one last blast of feedback and noise before wading into calmer waters a year later. [GH] |
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