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Damage and Joy Image
Metascore
70

Generally favorable reviews - based on 26 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.3

Generally favorable reviews- based on 23 Ratings

  • Summary: The seventh full-length release for the Scottish alternative rock band was produced by Youth and is its first new studio album in 18 years.
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Top Track

The Two of Us
I met a girl, she was crazy about me And in a lifetime this happens once or twice, maybe And who'd have thought that it would ever happen to me? I... See the rest of the song lyrics
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 26
  2. Negative: 0 out of 26
  1. Magnet
    Apr 26, 2017
    80
    Waves of corrosive guitar distortion surfing minimal, hammered eighth-note bass and programmed beats, with just enough feedback to aid recollection of the band that created Psychocandy. [No. 141, p.59]
  2. Uncut
    Mar 2, 2017
    80
    If anything, Damage And Joy underscores the Mary Chain's strengths. [Apr 2017, p.36]
  3. 75
    The Jesus and Mary Chain are trapped in amber on Damage and Joy, untouched by the very different musical climate to the one they last sent an album out into. Good job, then, that it contains far more hits than misses.
  4. Mar 20, 2017
    67
    It feels more like an intimate recording project than a live band document, mostly splitting the difference between routine electro-Stones rave-ups and strung-out ballads.
  5. Apr 10, 2017
    60
    The album is as much a kind of career retrospective and odds-and-ends collection as it is a new creative document.
  6. Mar 23, 2017
    60
    It’s a lot better than it might have been, but not quite as great as one might have hoped.
  7. Apr 12, 2017
    50
    Musically there is little to remember, lyrically some of this is challenging to forget. For a 19-year wait, this is a mild payoff indeed.

See all 26 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. May 16, 2017
    7
    This album resurrected a youthful sound and surprisingly found true power within a simple rock n’ roll atmosphere, and is a testament thatThis album resurrected a youthful sound and surprisingly found true power within a simple rock n’ roll atmosphere, and is a testament that today’s active and astute listeners should not become numb to simplistic four-chord creativity. My Score: 133/180 (Solid) = 7.4/10 Expand
  2. Mar 20, 2018
    6
    it's dividing, as the Mary Chain is (scottish and all). a mixed bag.

    since Munki they have gone on a longlasting hiatus although with some
    it's dividing, as the Mary Chain is (scottish and all). a mixed bag.

    since Munki they have gone on a longlasting hiatus although with some low-grade musical activity, concerned about their families (also sharing some of them on various social networks, over time), which all leans a bit too strongly into this album.

    the songs are a lot like what you'd expect from those older but still with instantaneous filth and malice filled glaswegian noise-pop terrorists.

    the always bewildered core of the reid brothers with changing n falling apart session musicians (this time with a producer who "limes" them together, albeit not much else...) is easily re-arranged but winded down & almost "too effortless".

    the guest crisp and very feminine female vocalists are spot on although a bit overindulgent and still concerned about the reids' sensuality albeit they're scottish, and swing a crucial scottish abode-ism.

    63%
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