The Jesus And Mary Chain

The Jesus and Mary Chain today set the wheels in motion for a landmark year ahead as they announce the March 8th release of their new album Glasgow Eyes  and single jamcod. The duo - brothers Jim and William Reid - will further mark their 40th year in 2024 with an autobiography (published by Orion/White Rabbit) a major European tour starting in Manchester on March 22nd.

Glasgow Eyes was recorded at Mogwai’s Castle of Doom studio in Glasgow, where Jim and William continued the creative process that resulted in their previous album, 2017’s Damage and Joy, becoming their highest charting album in over twenty years. What emerged is a record that finds one of the UK’s most influential groups embracing a productive second chapter, their maelstrom of melody, feedback and controlled chaos now informed more audibly by their love for Suicide and Kraftwerk  and a fresh appreciation of the less disciplined attitudes found in jazz.

Jim Reid says, “But don’t expect ‘the Mary Chain goes jazz.’ People should expect a Jesus and Mary Chain record, and that’s certainly what ‘Glasgow Eyes’ is. Our creative approach is remarkably the same as it was in 1984, just hit the studio and see what happens. We went in with a bunch of songs and let it take its course. There are no rules, you just do whatever it takes. And there’s a telepathy there - we are those weird not-quite twins that finish each other’s sentences.”

The album’s first single, jamcod, welds dark electronica with the immense guitar sound that can only be that of William Reid creating an instant Mary Chain classic that’s also undeniably fresh and radical.

jamcod and Glasgow Eyes not only extend The Jesus and Mary Chain story, but feel simultaneously like a return to roots. From the incendiary Psychocandy debut and its classic Just Like Honey onwards, the Reid brothers steadily became the misfits who made good without compromise.

Whoever was there back then still has a ringing in their ears today: when The Jesus And Mary Chain first hit concert stages in the mid-1980s, they were louder, more beautiful, more painful, and cooler than any other band of the moment. Psychocandy was the title of their debut, featuring the sweetest melodies and the nastiest feedback – you often couldn’t tell the difference between the two. That was 40 years ago. On their new album Glasgow Eyes, Jim and William Reid pick up right where their early aesthetics left off. You still listen to their songs with a leaden skull and aching lateral lobes – and with a smile on your face.