The Jesus and Mary Chain – Darklands (1987)

I've mentioned many times before that for a long time I had a bit of a problem with 80's music. I was never just happy with the sounds. It took me familiarising myself with The Smiths to start appreciating 80's music. That opened up a whole new world for me with numerous bands that I had many heard about but had never really considered as something that could be interesting. Particularly in post-punk and alternative rock. The Scottish band The Jesus and Mary Chain was a band that I had known by name only for a long time. I started from their debut album Psycho Candy, which proofed to be quite difficult to get into, because it's so noisy and melodies are not very upfront. It wasn't until I finally listened to Darklands that I really was hooked. The sounds are quite alternative and experimental, but there are great catchy pop melodies throughout the album.



Something in the 80's post-punk movement's visual aesthetics really drew me in. Afterall, in the late 90's and early 00's, bands like Placebo, Interpol and to some extent The Strokes had brought back the dark black and white clothing, skinny jeans and black hair that I found so relatable, I basically changed my style and I still hang on to some of those choices today. This fascination with the visual aesthetics made me want to explore the bands of the 80's a bit more and I have to say I was wrong about the 80's in some ways. There are numerous excellent bands in that decade, but you just need to see a bit more effort to find them today. Whenever people have their 80's retro parties etc. these are never the bands they play at those parties.

The album starts with a lazy drum beat and dry electric guitars in the intro of the title-track Darklands. It feels like this style must have influenced many indie bands that made their records at the beginning of 10's, because it sounds very similar. I'm talking about bands like Surfer Blood or Girls. Deep One Perfect Morning is an almost shamanistic art rock song that really resembles the sounds of The Velvet Underground. It shows that this whole movement that sounded so modern when it came out still had its roots in previous music. Happy When It Rains is a fantastic hit song that can get all the indie kids on the dance floor. I think this was the first song that really caught my attention from the band. Down on Me sounds like some of the rockier songs of R.E.M. There are some proper punk elements in this song even if the guitars have way too much echo to be mistaken with first wave punk. Nine Million Rainy Days is another slower song. This kind of simplistic and hypnotic sound must have influenced those shoegaze bands that started around the release of this album. April Skies is the most 80's sounding song of the whole album. The echoey electric guitars and steady drum and bass unison makes it sound very typical of the decade. Fall has some raspier tones in the sounds. It's closer to other amazing 80's alternative rock bands such as Pixies or Meat Puppets. Cherry Came Too is a simple song with simple melody, but there's something about those sounds that makes this a fantastic song. The whole sound world just makes you quite happy, which seems contradictory for such a dark band, but what can you do. On the Wall is quite lo-fi throughout. I like the duet vocals in the song. The album ends with About You, which has some beautifully chiming acoustic guitars spiced up with echo.

Since the 80's, visual aesthetics have been really important for bands. I guess that was important already before, but especially with the emergence of MTV, bands needed to, not only sound, but also look good. The music video for Happy When It Rains is a perfect example of a video that proofs just how cool the band is. The video is just a simple live performance video, but the clothes and hair on the band members and the way they move are just phenomenally cool!

I don't really know why most of the 80's music sounds slightly cold to me. Maybe it's the whole industrial feel they have to them. People experimented with sounds and most of the guitar and synth sounds of the time sounded quite futuristic and industrial compared to more earthy tones of the 70's, which became more popular again in the 90's. I've learned to embrace the coldness of some of the 80's bands quite a lot. The Jesus and Mary Chain is one of the greatest bands of the era and especially Darklands is in my opinion their greatest achievement, even if some people appreciate Psycho Candy more for its uniqueness factor.

Listen to the album on Spotify.