Coming from the darkest recesses of black-eyed 80s Indie, the firebrand brothers Reid, Douglas Hart and that sprightly spiv Bobby Gillespie forged a post-Byrdsian janglepop that served to foreshadow a legion of gloomy little heroes, from (early) Primal Scream and The Pastels to a host of more recent acts, such as White Lies and Glasvegas. This completist’s collection spans from their first release on Blanco Y Negro right through to their very last gasping squalls of nosebleed feedback; it’s hardly easy-listening, but the heart of these Scottish postcard punks lies very much in the sunshine-bursting-through-the-clouds melodies that are always found lurking just below the tinnitus-inducing reverb and Spector-al garage rock. Indeed, scratch inches beneath the noise and there lies a sublime alt country/Atlantic rock that has remained relevant during the intervening decades; proving conclusively that, whilst trends come and go, style never goes out of fashion. Further evidence is proved in the shape of ‘Just Like Honey’, ‘Taste Of Cindy’ and ‘You Trip Me Up’ – three examples of TJAMC’s enduring prescience with doe-eyed melody and snake-hipped rhythm.
According to legend, a drunk and belligerent Willy Reid insisted on turning the one track of feedback right up on the desk whilst their first Creation single ‘Upside Down’ was being mixed, refusing to relent until eventually the hapless sound engineer got tired of arguing with him and acquiesced. But this wilful esoterism is a sizeable part of the charm; ‘Upside Down’ is still breathlessly portentous and singularly cool, sounding like the sort of thing Dracula listens to on his iPod when he goes out flashing in his black diamante trenchcoat. Another highlight is the Syd Barrett curio ‘Vegetable Man’ and Leonard Cohen cover ‘Tower Of Song’, the latter delivered with more drugged lasciviousness than a junkie threeway.
Whereas these sort of compilations are often rash aferthoughts of catalogue grave robbing, released long after an act has been ‘sold’, this collection both builds on 1988′s ‘Barbed Wire Kisses’ and contains a new platform for some of ver Chain’s best work. Their unbridled obsession with American junk subculture, meted out into a hyper-amphetaminised strain of 50s rockabilly, is most obvious on the uberfuzzed surf guitar-soma of ‘Kill Surf City’, whilst single ‘Sidewalking’ and berserko cover of ‘Surfin’ USA’ are yet more examples of their bowel-lacerating rock brilliance. Great ‘lost’ single ‘Snakedriver’ is where the band finally realised their “Beach Boys with feedback” ambitions and the sure-footed cover of ‘Reverberation’ by the 13th Floor Elevators is another forgotten gem.
Four discs of this kind of erratic, feedback-flecked horseplay might well have more casual fans scurrying back to the more temperate climes of pop sensibility, but the hardcore will still savour this smorgasbord of nuclear white noise until bits of brain begin to leak from their noses. Cos when it comes to TJAMC, the songs just get hotter as the bones of the band’s jangling corpse gets colder.
