THE chain between warring brothers Jim and William Reid looked irreversibly broken, too much damage, not enough joy; poles apart beyond living in South Devon and Los Angeles respectively.
Low-key solo projects emerged, so too the Sister Vanilla record with their sister, and then a festival comeback at Coachella in 2007, but given that they had recorded their parts on 1998's Munki separately, it was surely too much to expect a full Jesus And Mary Chain resurrection, but here it is, 19 years on, recorded with producer Youth cast in the role of a latterday Kofi Annan.
Youth by name, maybe, but Damage And Joy is more late-period semi-acoustic Stoned And Dethroned than the first alarm call of Psychocandy in 1995.
There are no new ideas here, bemoaned a fellow Jesus and Mary Chain disciple; well, not beyond the initial idea of returning to the studio. They still sing of girls, LSD, hating each other; they still like words ending in "shun" (Amputation) and they still make a beautiful honeyed noise when joined by guest vocalists Sky Ferreira and Isobel Campbell. Some joy, yes, and not much damage to the legacy.
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