The Jesus and Mary Chain Embrace ‘No Rules’ on New Song ‘Jamcod’

Kory Grow
·2 min read
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new-song-jesus-and-mary-chain - Credit: Mel Butler*
new-song-jesus-and-mary-chain - Credit: Mel Butler*

Are you ready to O.D. on Jesus and Mary Chain? The group’s latest single, “jamcod,” which will appear on their upcoming Glasgow Eyes LP, finds frontman Jim Reid singing, “Tears are what you want, tears are what you got,” before the band’s trademark noise, led by Jim’s brother William’s guitar, kicks in and he builds to the titular chant: “J.A.M.C.O.D.” The group will achieve full overdose potential when Glasgow Eyes comes out on March 8.

The band recorded the album, which contains typically iconoclastic-looking song titles like “The Eagles and the Beatles” and “Lou Reid,” at the Glasgow studio Castle of Doom, which belongs to fellow Glaswegians Mogwai. The group recorded its last album, 2017’s Damage and Joy, at the same studio.

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“People should expect a Jesus and Mary Chain record, and that’s certainly what Glasgow Eyes is,” Jim said in a statement. “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 group will kick off a European tour in support of the album in March. The schedule ironically contains no dates in Glasgow.

The album’s release is meant to coincide with the band’s 40th anniversary; the Reid brothers will also release an autobiography next year. In 2015, around the 30th anniversary of their celebrated Pyschocandy album, Jim Reid reflected on what motivated the band in the beginning in an interview with Rolling Stone.

“The punk thing was a massive influence on the Mary Chain,” he said. “After that, we got seriously into the Velvets and the Stooges. We weren’t very into what was going on in music in the Eighties. The bands that didn’t make us want to puke back then were the likes of the Birthday Party or Echo and the Bunnymen. Actually, it was the crap coming out of the radio that made us want to be in a band more than anything else, because it was like, ‘Why is everything we hear so fucking awful?’ That was the main driving force: how bad things were.”

Glasgow Eyes track list:

1. “Venal Joy”
2. “American Born”
3. “Mediterranean X Film”
4. “jamcod”
5. “Discotheque”
6. “Pure Poor”
7. “The Eagles and the Beatles”
8. “Silver Strings”
9. “Chemical Animal”
10. “Second of June”
11. “Girl 71”
12. “Hey Lou Reid”

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