JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
The Jesus and Mary Chain Hate Rock 'n' Roll
American
THE DRONE CROWN of feedback and fuzz thorns is piercing the foreheads of Jesus and Mary again, even if it is only occasionally and probably temporarily. This compilation has four new songs for America (released on a U.K. EP earlier this year), including the churlish sweet buzz of the trash talking title track.It also has B-sides, a Thrill Kill-ish remix of "Teenage Lust," and "Snakedriver" from The Crow soundtrack. Add it up and it's a panoramic view of every style JMC has tried, from Just Like Honey to Stoned & Dethroned.
The claustrophobic contrast of whispered harmonic poetics and white noise bliss is probably just a goodbye kiss before a return to the acoustic success of Stoned.
--Michael MetzgerJUDE COLE
I Don't Know Why I Act This Way
Island Records
WHAT A JOY, a relief, a genuine pleasure it is to hear a talented voice pour out words of conviction. Jude Cole has knocked around the power-pop world for years with notables such as Moon Martin and The Records, and hit the Top-40 himself with 1990's A View From 3rd Street. Then came the fall, and a half-decade later he's come back from drug addiction and overdose to deposit the vibrant I Don't Know Why I Act This Way. Cole's personal pop is lean and bitter-sweet--with a leaning on the sweet--poignant and emotional, honest and heartfelt. Is there any room left on the charts for music with quality?
--Timothy Gassen
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Tapestry Revisited
Atlantic/Lava
CAROLE KING'S TAPESTRY defined the suburban singer/songwriter sound of the '70s--an album every sensitive pale person, or their caring parents, owned at one time.Soft soul and R&B artists decorate the disc in sterile lushness: Eternal stills "I Feel The Earth Move;" Amy Grant's divinely uninspired "It's Too Late;" BeBe & CeCe Winans' stretching "You've Got A Friend" to near-fatal sugar-shock saved by an Aretha Franklin cameo.
Even worse: barnacles such as Rod Stewart, the Bee Gees and Richard Marx attached to the good ship Tapestry.
Good news: Manhattan Transfer's chapel-snap and pop "Smackwater Jack;" Curtis Stigers bluesy "Home Again;" Blessed Union Of Souls' gospel croon of "Way Over Yonder."
--Michael Metzger
