In 1989, a friend and I had been watching the music video for The Jesus & Mary Chain’s “Blues from a Gun” when I remarked in awe that this was the coolest band in the world I had ever seen.  Keep in mind this was pre-Internet and one was lucky to catch on MTV airings of even the most popular videos by alternative rock artists.  I’m not sure why the channel gave inordinate visibility to this group when well over ninety percent of the content at the time was bubblemetal, AOR balladeers and the most blatantly commercial of pop.  Maybe they thought there was more commercial potential for the JAMC than was likely at the time.

That was from the album Automatic, which was not as good as I deluded myself into thinking it was.  But there was no mistaking how much an improvement was made on the next album, 1992’s Honey’s Dead.  They may have reteamed with producer Alan Moulder, but the sound is much improved over its predecessor because of the addition of Steve Monti on drums.  Still, he doesn’t fully replace the drum machine that was the sole percussion on the 1989 album, as programmed beats are still used on occasion to augment the live drums.

Fundamentally, not much changes with the formula, with everything still covered in layers of feedback.  Even with that, Jim and William Reid refine their songs to maximize the potential for radio play.  This results in some of their best singles of their career, while the topics are still mostly sex, wearing black and standing in the rain.  The best of the lot, “Far Gone and Out” even has the humorous self-awareness to have the song’s narrator profess ignorance as to why they are doing the last of those.

The lead single also leads the tracklist, with “Reverence” being a surprisingly danceable number combining mild blasphemies against both traditional Christianity and the legacy of president Kennedy.  It is the most solidly 1992 track on the most 1992 album of 1992. A single of it even had a remix Al Jourgensen of Ministry, another band very much of that time. The brothers Reid would later comment in the liner notes of the deluxe reissue of this album that they might have as well burned the money that was paid for it, given how little effort Jourgensen put into it.

Second track “Teenage Lust” does exactly what it says on the tin.  Admittedly, this is a song that probably wouldn’t be done today (at least, it shouldn’t), with an obviously older man singing of the girl in question: “she’s taking holding on/holding on/holding on and my sense is gone.”  At least the song isn’t called “Statutory Rape”, though a tasteless remix uses porn samples to convey the meaning to anybody who was so oblivious that they didn’t realize it already. 

Then we have what I consider to be the key tracks, those being the aforementioned “Far Gone and Out” and “Almost Gold”.  The latter is the best ballad of their oeuvre, even more than “Sometimes Always”, the duet with Hope Sandoval from the next album.  The feedback in the background of the verses is among the most beautiful I have heard.  It sounds closer to a soaring string arrangement than anything. “Far Gone and Out” also had a remix, an “Arc Weld” mix named after Neil Young’s live album and accompanying noise montage of the time. As one imagine, it is far more focused on the guitars and feedback than the album version.

The rest of the album is very solid, but with fewer standouts.  Basically, if one enjoyed any one of the previous tracks, I can’t imagine they’ll be unhappy with a single track here.  I know I, at least, am usually happy to get as much from a particular vein as I can when I find something that pricks up my ears.  The album even comes full circle in a odd way with “Frequency”, a short track which lyrically calls back to opener “Reverence”.  It also quotes “Roadrunner” by The Modern Lovers both lyrically and musically.

Several b-sides extend the vibe beyond the confines of the album.  Of those b-sides, I’m astonished “Heat” didn’t make the track listing proper, as somebody thought enough of it to want to license it for a Coors commercial.  I wasn’t as surprised the band agreed to that as I was when they later released a song titled “Commercial” two albums down the road, but used the opportunity to excoriate McDonald’s instead of Coors.  Guess they didn’t want to bite the silver bullet which feeds them.

One b-side I would have used in place of a track on the album is the acoustic version of “Teenage Lust”.  It has a certain undefinable quality which adds an intriguing edge to a track which is a bit too straightforward in its original incarnation.  It also points towards the acoustic albums the brothers Reid always threatened to do, something they would come closest to with their next album, Stoned and Dethroned.