Music

Release Radar: The Jesus And Mary Chain ‘Glasgow Eyes’

The Reid Brothers may be mellowing with age, but their sound hasn’t.

I didn’t have a new record from The Jesus And Mary Chain on my 2024 bingo card, but here we are. And I’m glad they did. Almost seven years to the day after their last record (2017’s ‘Damage and Joy’), the Reid brothers are back with their eighth studio release and one of their more solid records.

“The people that we were then, we still are. I think we’d be pretty comfortable with what we’ve become, but astonished to find we’re still doing it. But if you’re doing it because you love it and you’ve made a new record you think is as good as any that you’ve made, then why the fuck not?”

~Jim Reid

The Jesus And Mary Chain’s discography is marked with distinct guardrails: the feedback-drenched Psychocandy. The surf rock of the Barbed Wire Kisses compilation and the (relative) pop accessibility of Automatic.

Jim and William Reid wrote Glasgow Eyes while rooting through archival material for an upcoming autobiography. So, it stands to reason that a little bit of each era would surface here. Some songs point to specific dots on the line- like when Reid recalls the band’s self-immolation at a 1998 show, singing…