The Jesus And Mary Chain - Munki

By 1998, The Jesus And Mary Chain sounded like a band coming apart at the seams. Munki turned that instability into one of the strangest, most sprawling records of their career.

Originally released on Sub Pop, the band’s sixth studio album arrived more than a decade after the feedback-drenched revolution of Psychocandy. Jim and William Reid were famously nearing the end of their original run together, and Munki reflects that tension. Across its unusually expansive tracklist, the brothers pull from garage rock, noise pop, psychedelia, blues, and the melodic alternative rock they had increasingly explored throughout the 1990s.

The opening “I Love Rock ’N’ Roll” sets the tone with distortion, swagger, and characteristic Reid irreverence, while songs such as “Cracking Up,” “Degenerate,” and “Virtually Unreal” demonstrate that their ability to bury irresistible melodies beneath layers of fuzz remained intact. Elsewhere, Munki wanders into quieter, stranger territory, giving the album an unpredictable quality that separates it from the tighter construction of their earlier records.

There is also something fittingly dysfunctional about its structure. Jim opens the album with “I Love Rock ’N’ Roll,” while William closes it with “I Hate Rock ’N’ Roll,” bookending nearly seventy minutes of music with two opposing declarations from brothers whose creative partnership was reaching breaking point.

This 2023 reissue from Fuzz Club spreads the album across two LPs and was remastered by Pete Maher, giving one of the Mary Chain’s longest and most unruly records the space its dense production deserves.

Munki would become The Jesus And Mary Chain’s final studio album before their breakup and nearly two-decade recording hiatus. Messy, abrasive, melodic, and defiantly excessive, it plays like the sound of a great band pushing itself to the edge, making it one of the most fascinating outliers in their catalog.