Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Mar 23, 2017It might make their fans happy, but for a band that claims to be dangerous and rebellious, it goes a long way towards reinforcing the fact that the JAMC are no longer either of those things.
-
Mar 24, 2017On the whole, everything proceeds much too predictably and with far too much caution and restraint.
-
Apr 12, 2017Musically there is little to remember, lyrically some of this is challenging to forget. For a 19-year wait, this is a mild payoff indeed.
-
Apr 20, 2017JAMC’s reclaim for glory is expectedly uneven: it’s as carelessly abrasive and reverb-heavy as it should be, but it’s also mounted with a heavy number of throwaways that document different periods of their celebrated past without a clear notion of how they should move forward.
-
Mar 27, 2017The album’s clean production (courtesy of producer Youth) and comfortable mood (nicely summed up by the song Mood Rider) is somewhat surprising and a tad disappointing. However, they don’t sound aloof, either. The mirror JAMC are holding up to the mainstream nowadays is less distorted, but still fully engaged in sharp and timeless songcraft.
-
Apr 10, 2017The album is as much a kind of career retrospective and odds-and-ends collection as it is a new creative document.
-
Q MagazineMar 14, 2017Solid, but a little more derangement would have been welcome. [May 2017, p.107]
-
Mar 23, 2017It’s a lot better than it might have been, but not quite as great as one might have hoped.
-
Mar 22, 2017There’s not quite as intense a contrast between the sweetness of the melodies and the antagonistic howls of guitar feedback on this first album in 18 years, which allows the swaggering pop charm of tracks like “Songs For A Secret” and “All Things Pass” to work their magic in less edgy manner.
-
Mar 27, 2017If Damage and Joy isn’t quite the echo of their pomp, neither is it a disappointment.
-
Mar 20, 2017In all, after 18 very long years, Damage and Joy is a near-faultless return to form, even if some of these 'new' songs are actually over a decade old.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 17 out of 23
-
Mixed: 6 out of 23
-
Negative: 0 out of 23
-
May 16, 2017
-
Mar 20, 2018