Jesus and Mary Chain

[Jeff Dalton <jeff%aiva.edinburgh.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk>]

They can be overrated and still be good.  They can even be wildly overrated
and still be good, or at least I find this to be so.  They have a white
noise sort of feedback sound with occasional overtones of a high speed
drill.  The only things like it that I have heard and still liked are (1)
John Cale's electric viola in "Heroin" on the Velvet Underground's first LP,
(2) Per Ubu's (?sp) white noise generator, and (3) some of the guitar parts
on the Dream Syndicate's 1st lp.  I imagine it could be really painful live,
though, so I don't think I'd like them in concert, but on record they're
quite good.  The songs have surprisingly nice little melodies, and the
noise has an openness that doesn't obscure the rest of the music.  The
lyrics may not be to everyone's taste, though.