Customer Reviews

Stoned & Dethroned

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Since no more than a smattering of people will ever buy this album, much less arrive at the Amazon reviews page and actually read the reviews, why am I bothering to write this? Passion I guess. This is one of my favorite albums of all time, and I get inspired when listening to it. I have to make my testimonial to the JAMC, and in particular to their later work.

The whole album is fantastic, all the way through, and I am particular to tracks 16 & 17. The music has it's own identity, but it is perhaps most derivative of the earlier, but not earliest, rolling stones. Early 70's stones, where they had settled into an identity and played stripped down rock and roll. But this record has a more soulful and spiritual bent which shows a melancholy maturity and reflects a life-experience that transcends anything the stones ever did. God Help Me and You've Been a Friend are prime examples.

A plug for Hope Sandoval from Mazzy Star on track 3. She steals the show, and is an appropriate addition to the album, as she stands, in this writers opinion, as another grossly underheard artist. And the guitar playing on this album...listen to the end of Till it Shines, or Feeling Lucky...and it should speak for itself.

(Being from the northern US, this analogy won't apply for everyone, but many can sympathize): Can you describe how great you feel on a surprisingly warm winter afternoon, where snow is melting everywhere and the sun brightly reflects off the wet city streets?
For me, this album captures that feeling - a pervasive warmth donned in a kind of contendedness that simply cannot be extinguished. The perfectly intertwined male and female vocals, the gentle instrumentation, and the sense of upbeat that carries throughout, even in the sadder songs. No other album that I have found does it so well.
J&MC use several themes in these songs - love, companionship, and hope, but also shades of shame and fear. The songs are unbelievably human to persist such an engaging tone while avoiding being all cutesy and flaky. I can listen to "Dirty Water" endlessly, even in its "I've been swimming where the fish won't go... kick me down and I will kick you too / Isn't that what we're supposed to do?" confusion. After the first track, it's hard to pull any others out because they all work so well together. This is not an album of singles, but an incredibly well-woven album. After coasting along, hearing tales of longing and mistakes make, the outro of You've Been a Friend / These Days / Feeling Lucky end on such a high note, the album will feel like it ended too soon.
There aren't many albums I can listen to at Repeat All and not tire of them, but this is easily the top of that list. It never fails to produce that sense of warmth, that glow that consumes you and won't die down, no matter what happens.
A disc that can do that? Priceless.

What a surprise after JMC's powerful "Honey's Dead"! It's almost as if the Reid's realized they probably couldn't match that album, so, with the help of a terrific rhythm section (Ben Lurie on bass, Steve Monti on drums), they mellowed out their sound to give us the fine "Stoned and Dethroned."

What's interesting here is that, for the first time, we know which Reid brother wrote which song. Since "S&D" contains virtually wall-to-wall softer, more melodic songs, one can expect William to be the greater influence, and, indeed, he wrote more than twice as many songs on the album as did brother Jim. We can also look back and guess which brother wrote which songs on the previous albums. For instance, the grungy "Teenage Lust," ("Hole" on "S&D" sounds basically the same) and the propulsive "Sugar Ray" are classic Jim, whereas the melodic "Catchfire" and "Almost Gold," surely belong to William.

"S&D" really consists of no weak songs, which is pretty amazing since there are seventeen of them. But if I had to name my favorites, they would be the Sonny and Cher like "Sometimes Always" (with the lovely Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star), "Between Us," "She," "These Days," and the effervescent "Girlfriend."

"Stoned and Dethroned" may be a departure from the typical JMC sound (more William than Jim), but it's certainly a welcome and successful one.

The Jesus and Mary Chain may be among the most under-appreciated bands today, considering how many other bands they have influenced. "Stoned and Dethroned" is among their best, if not their very best work. For this album, JMC has set aside their driving, industrial noise-rock sound, and opted for a more traditional style of acoustic and electric rock. Long time fans of JMC will find this album to be a bit of a shock, as there is almost no background sound in any of the songs. I, for one, feel that it was high time for JMC to make this album--to take a break from their grinding music and do something mellow. "Stoned and Dethroned" will appeal to the masses much more than any of their previous work (which I love, but wouldn't recommend to everyone). Look for an outstanding duet with Hope Sandoval in "Sometimes, Always."

A wiseguy reviewer I once read said the Jesus & Mary Chain made two types of music - music for those smoking dope, and for those on crack. It does capture a bit of the disparity in their music, with highly melodic, tuneful musings that (almost) belong on pop radio on one hand, to much edgier and grinding riffs on the other.

Running with that analogy, this album falls into the pot-smoking portion of the band's catalog, more in the spirit of Darklands than of Automatic or some of their 80's efforts. I found this album fantastic, a continuous stream of mellow acoustic songs each of which are winners. The album had a minor radio hit with the duet "Sometimes Always" - that said, it is probably one of the most under-appreciated albums of the 90's given how good it is from top to bottom. "Artistic" is the word that comes to mind to describe the lush melodies on rueful lyrics that permeate this album.

I have had this cd since it first came out and it is the only cd that I own that I can listen to from beginning to end over and over again without getting sick of it!

Up until this album, the Jesus and Mary chain had made their reputation by drenching Velvet Underground-inspired tunes in waves of guitar feedback. With "Stoned and Dethroned" the stripping of the noise pushed the tunes to the fore, and allowed us to comprehend what great songwriters the Reid brothers are.

The Reid brothers explained around the time of this album's release their desire to make the record more "acoustic". The result is an inviting creation of space and ambience. This album is a sonic journey through wide open frontiers and into comforting darkness.

The centerpiece of this album is "Never Saw It Coming", a classic track of downtrodden lyrics accompanied by gently propelling guitars, bass and drums. The rest of the album narrowly ranges between down and midtempo. The record seems effortless, a hallmark of some of the greatest albums.

I've been into the Jesus and Mary Chain for a while, but I've often heard that "die-hard fans" won't like this album. Not true. It's mellow (mostly acoustic), but has some of the best melodies and vocals they've ever done. Anyone who likes melodic rock (with slight punk influences still evident) will probably like this CD. To give a comparison, if you like the mellower Smashing Pumpkins songs, or the Velvet Underground (who were an influence on the J&MC), you should listen to this. Another J&MC CD worth buying if you're new to them, which has some harder, noiser stuff as well, is "The Jesus and Mary Chain Hate Rock N' Roll". They have a new one coming out in June called "Munki" which will be on the Subpop label.

I have no other JAMC albums so I cant compare them to Pschocandy or Automatic or what have you. But the songwriting is excellent on this album. At times the Reid's brothers voices drop to little more than a whisper, with beatiful acoustic rhythm in the background and overdriving distorted electric guitars make music like nothing I have ever heard before (but it always reminds me of Las Vegas, dont ask me why).

The weakness of this album has to be the length of it and the fact it's difficult to define one song from another as the style is so similar throughout the album, but I have to hand it to JAMC, this album is highly addictive, I once listened to it non-stop for a month!

Best songs are; Dirty Water, Bullet Lovers, Come On, Girlfriend and God Help Me (which features Shane McGowan of the Pouges on it).

Over all very good album, buy it!

This album is certainly a departure from their usual sound. It has faults to be sure - you can detect a certain sameness in some tracks, but the strength in 'Stoned and Dethroned' is the music's subtlety.

My personal favourite from this selection is 'Never Saw It Coming', one of the most unsettling songs I've ever heard thanks to the combination of a forboding lyric and the music's tension. another ace song is 'God Help Me'. It's sheer hopelessness is so powerful, you're left wondering if the guest singer (Shane MacGowan) slashed his wrists after recording it.

Fortunately, the album has its upbeat moments too - 'Girlfriend', 'Come On'. But there is always an underlying desperation in even the most optimistic tunes on this recording that makes it uniquely JMC.

All in all, this is a well balanced album. Not the noisefest JMC fans are accustomed to, but it proves that the group doesn't need feedback to sound good. It's an album that definitely grows on you - like an ugly lesion perhaps, but it grows on you. Pick it up. I did and I have no regrets.

Also, check out JMC's 'Honey's Dead' album. It's really a gem.