Hear Jesus and Mary Chain’s Perky New Song ‘Always Sad’
The Jesus and Mary Chain have unleashed their new track “Always Sad,” the second single off the influential group’s upcoming LP and first album in 18 years, Damage and Joy.
Despite the downer title, “Always Sad” is a perky slice of jangle-pop that’s surprisingly free of the band’s trademark layers of unrelenting distortion. However, the song’s lyrics point the song in a different direction. “I think I’m always gonna be sad/ Because you’re the best I ever had,” singer Jim Reid and guest vocalist Bernadette Denning sing in unison on the chorus. “A million miles between us now/ Why can’t we just work things out?”
“Always Sad” follows first single “Amputated.” The Youth-produced Damage and Joy, the Jesus and Mary Chain‘s first LP since 1998’s Munki, arrives March 24th. Nearly 10 years after first reuniting at the 2007 Coachella, Reid revealed earlier this year that the band would finally release their new album; the singer had been hinting about a new JAMC LP since as far back as 2008.
“We’ve got fuck-loads of songs. That’s not a problem. The problem is how to record them,” Reid told Rolling Stone in 2015. “It’s just boring, really. At one point, [guitarist William Reid] wanted to record in L.A. in a fancy recording studio. I wanted to record on a more basic setup, like ProTools. Also, when we first got back together, my kids were quite young, and I didn’t really want to disappear for months on end. Now my kids are a bit older, and he’s kind of come ’round to the idea of recording on a computer … Yeah. Told you it was boring.”