Customer Reviews

Psychocandy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I wasn't old enough to hear the original verison of this album on vinyl so I've always been stuck with the "muddy" sounding original CD version. I'm always a little skeptical about the so-called digitally remastered albums but it seems they took their time on Psychocandy. The album sounds blisteringly better than the older version. I would recomend it to anyone who has listened to the older CD versions, it is great.

"Never Understand", probably the standout track from "Psychocandy" contains one of the most heavily distorted guitar riffs ever recorded, and reminds me of the sound of massive panes of glass breaking into individual shards while being levitated within the funnel of a gigantic cyclone. It's a backwash of pure, tuneful feedback meshed with a thick, propulsive bassline and rudimentary drumming while a warm, disaffected male voice mourns that his girl will "Never understand me/never understand me".

The Jesus and Mary Chain have been described by critics and admirers alike as sounding like the "..Beach Boys on acid", with their guitar sound famously described as "..chainsaws in a hurricane." The fourteen songs on their first release are raw, sometimes aggressively paced, at others bouncy and harmonious, short, and often cluttered with feedback, yet retain a kind of hypnotic, highly melodic sound to them. Many of these songs were college radio standards when "Alternative" meant "way out of the mainstream." And they were played frequently, which is where I first heard "Never Understand", "The Hardest Walk", "Just Like Honey", "Cut Dead", "Sowing Seeds", and "Taste of Cindy". This was a landmark CD, and its influence is impossible to overestimate; while looking over their shoulder at the Velvet Underground as their spiritual predecessors, the Jesus and Mary Chain essentially provided the blueprint for shoegazing rock, a debt freely acknowledged by Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, whose "Isn't Anything" is widely considered to be the first proper shoegazing release.

But don't get it just because it's a pioneering release. Buy it because it's a catchy pop masterpiece that just about totally subverts that genre by burying it under heavily distorted guitar riffs and a massive wash of feedback. Buy it because it's melodic, hummable, and as memorable on the five-hundredth listen as it is on the first. This is as close to a can't-miss recording as I have heard in the 25 years since its release. Just buy it.

Back in the day my buddy and I made a swap. He gets 20 tapes of his choice from my collection and he buys me (had no $$ teenager) Psychocandy. I made out on the deal. Great CD that is still unique and impressive after all these years. One of those albums that never gets old and although Darklands is good, JAMC NEVER came close to beating this release. You need this CD.

The clash of bass and Stratocasters is not to be missed. This album should figure prominently on all lists numbering essential albums for rock fans.

I guess that would be kinda splitting hairs.

There are two major angles from which to criticize this album, and mine isn't "it's just noise" or "I don't get it." I love noisy stuff; that's why I can tell that beneath all the noise here is just extremely predictable retro pop songwriting and unaffectingly sedate delivery.