The Jesus And Mary Chain, "Honey's Dead," 92' German 1st-PR -Ultrasonic-Plays NM

$

138

Dr. John's Spin Factory brings you one of the best of one of the best alt-rock, "shoe-gazer" bands of the 1980s and 90s.  Love Lush?  The Charlatans?  Sisters of Mercy?  Then, heads up!  Up for your consideration is The Jesus And Mary Chain's, Honey's Dead.  If this is music you have wanted in the very best vinyl form available, this is absolutely it.  I bought this gem from the (sadly, now defunct) Vinyl Solution in Grand Rapids Michigan in the late spring of 1992.  I had learned about this 3-person unit of Scottish origin as a volunteer disc jockey at my college radio station, WIDR-FM. (Man--those were the days!) To be sure, this is the highly desirable 1st pressing, made in Germany by Warner Music Manufacturing Europe.  The vinyl surfaces are stunningly quiet.  The pressing is nearly perfect.  The jacket, which looks new, has that quality look and feel I have long found unique to European releases of the era.  Just holding it is a tactile pleasure for the fingers.  
To fill in a few specifics about the music pressed on this excellent disc of vinyl, here is AllMusic's reviewer, Ned Raggett. 

Again working with Alan Moulder but now also using a live drummer on most tracks -- namely Monti from Curve, one of the Mary Chain's many descendants -- the Reids came back strong with Honey's Dead, on balance a more consistent and satisfying record than Automatic. There's a sense of greater creativity with the arrangements, while the balance between blasting static rampage and precise, almost clinical delivery is the finest yet, making the album as a whole the best straight-through listen since Psychocandy. Monti's drumming finally replaces Bobby Gillespie's properly; he's a much more talented musician than the Primal Scream overlord, using the warped funk hits familiar from Curve's work to the Mary Chain's advantage. Even the drum machine-driven cuts work better than before, especially the brilliant, coruscating opener, "Reverence." Burning with some of the best nails-on-chalkboard feedback the band had yet recorded, combined with a whipsmart sharp breakbeat, all it took was the finishing touch of Jim Reid's sneering lines like "I wanna die like Jesus Christ" to make it another stone-cold classic single from the band. Other winners include "Sugar Ray," with beats and melody so immediate and addictive the track was actually used for a beer commercial, of all things, and the steady slap and crunch of "Good for My Soul." If there's a danger in Honey's Dead, it's that the near bottomless pit of reworked melodies and lyrics had almost reached its end -- even the final track, "Frequency," combines both "Reverence" itself with the Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" -- which made the stylistic shift on Stoned & Dethroned a logical follow-up. William and Jim Reid split all the vocals almost evenly, the former especially shining on the nearly gentle "Almost Gold," the closest the record comes to a sweet ballad.