Walking Back To You: Psychocandy Revisited

Sometime after my vehement attack on The Jesus And Mary Chain, I wound up listening to Psychocandy again, and perhaps I was a little bit harsh on the album the last time round. Whilst I think what I said about them being no great shakes in the songwriting department and the general inanity of their lyrics stands up - see all their other albums for proof - Psychocandy, far from being original as it is, is none the less a fine album. In retrospect, the general approach - pop combined with ear-splitting feedback - seems fairly obvious, but at the same time, there are genuinely exciting moments. The album does suffer from being a bit samey, especially as the band seem to only have two rhythmic gears - one goes 'chunk...chunkchunk..clash' ('Just Like Honey', 'Cut Dead') and the other goes 'clank clank clank clank' (,You Trip Me Up', 'Never Understand Me'). But there are some truly stunning moments. 'You Trip Me Up' is truly bracing, swamped in ear splitting feedback and one of the album's most successful songs. 'Just Like Honey' is a particular favourite of mine, starting off as it does with The Mary Chain's finest couplet. 'Listen to the girl / As she takes on half the world' is a beautiful way to open up the album, and followed by 'Walking back to you / Is the hardest thing that I can do / For you', it makes for a touching moment, before the song disintegrates into feedback and repetitive drugged-out mumbling ('Just like honey x17', the lyrics off the internet inform me). It's almost the perfect deconstruction of a pop song. But the thought occurs that The JAMC chanced on their moments of greatness almost entirely by accident - part of the album's appeal is its rough naivety, and the directionlessness of the band after their first statement of intent suggests that they didn't have the necessary vision to take their sound further, as others such as My Bloody Valentine would. And whilst I don't believe that Psychocandy is a work of genius, (and everything I said about the rest of The Mary Chain back-catalogue still stands), it is a good album when judged on its own merits.
I don't do this for everyone I slag off, mind.