Glasgow Eyes

Glasgow Eyes cements The Jesus and Mary Chain’s legacy as influential pioneers, but it’s more than just a nostalgic trip. It’s a testament to their ability to surprise, innovate, and craft music that still resonates even at this stage in their career.

Glasgow Eyes takes the band’s experimental noise pop further. The expected elements are all there, from the brooding lyrics to the droning guitars to the intricate melodies. Still, incorporating electronic elements adds extra flavor for those who’ve already played Honey’s Dead a thousand times and don’t need another one.

William and Jim Reid remain as defiantly out of time as ever. [Mar 2024, p.29]

The record ends with a burst of Velvets fuzz-rock titled Hey Lou Reid - but it's only fitting on a record that burnishes their legend with such sizzling acid. [Apr 2024, p.76]

Glasgow Eyes' liberal use of electronics is a renewing force, and a kind of homecoming too. .... Glasgow Eyes is a positive twist in the sage of these negaholics synonymous. [Apr 2024, p.86]

The album—their eighth overall—finds Jim and William conjuring up wicked, writhing, guitar-driven goth rock that’s full of grizzly, distorted guitar-driven shoegaze and snarly, industrial clangers.

Skip the dogs, stick to the weird, raw, and experimental songs and Glasgow Eyes might be considered one of the band's best albums in a very long time. Add them back and it makes for a frustrating and exhilarating listening experience that's brutally honest, completely ridiculous, and in some ways it sums up everything good and bad about the Jesus and Mary Chain all on one slab of plastic.

While it inevitably doesn’t have the shattering impact of Psychocandy, it does confirm their unlikely status as elder statesmen that a whole new generation can look up to.

Uncompromising and unconventional, ‘Glasgow Eyes’ sit comfortably in The Jesus and Mary Chain canon.

Between the excitement of the new on ‘Glasgow Eyes’ and the presence of the more classic, indie rock side of the band on tracks like ‘The Eagles and The Beatles’, the band appear to have tapped into a rich new vein of songwriting form. On this evidence, here’s to the next forty.

Ultimately, what’s different about Glasgow Eyes is not the form but the tenor. As they advance into middle age, the tension between the Reid brothers has dissipated, giving Glasgow Eyes an unusually congenial spirit.

Glasgow Eyes isn’t far off being a great record, but those drops in quality aren’t just blips, they’re chasms.

There are inevitable longueurs as well, mind: Pure Poor gives dirges a bad name, and closer Hey Lou Reid fancies itself as an epic but instead just feels like an extraordinarily slow six minutes. Still, the fact that Glasgow Eyes is three-quarters of a good record is reason for celebration.