THE LEGENDS
Up Against The Legends
Lakeshore
· Pop goes the Mary Chain.
For many years, every new band that came down the pipe was likened to The Velvet Underground in one way or another. However it seems that The Jesus and Mary Chain have become the VU for the new millennium. Whether it’s the two-piece squelch of The Raveonettes, the thick sonic blanket of Skywave or the raging rave-up of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, bands of all kinds are paying homage to Jim and William Reid of The JAMC.
Now you can add Sweden’s The Legends to that list. Folding sweet female harmonies into the revisionist psych-pop of the Mary Chain, this band borrows from producer Phil Spector and the Reid brothers as much as the latter borrowed from the former (it even goes as far as to steal the "And Then He Kissed Me" drum beat that The JAMC used for "Psycho Candy"). Spector’s trademark wall of sound gets reworked with fuzzed-out vocals, bubbling low-end guitar runs and bouncing tambourine smashes. What makes The Legends stand out from all the other imitators is their knack for pounding their capable pop sensibilities soundly through the wooley blanket of a mid-fi rock record. An urgent two-chord mope-out is carved in half by guitar dissonance only to turn into the sunshine chorus of the year. Punctuated with sniper bullets of stray feedback and perfectly placed handclaps, Up Against The Legends is the feel-good album that The Jesus and Mary Chain never made.
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