release date: Oct. 19, 1987
format: cd (2006 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,56]
producer: Robin Guthrie
label: Flow Records (Remaster) - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Bill Bailey" - 3. "Lupita Screams" - 4. "Yellow Eyes" - 5. "The Breaking Hands" (4,5/ 5) - 6. "Araby" - 7. "Hearts" - 8. "My Cousin Kim"
4th studio album by The Gun Club originally released on Red Rhino is the band's first release after its reformation and it follows more than three years after The Las Vegas Story (1984). Between these two, Jeffrey Lee Pierce released his solo album debut, but for this he has reformed the band together with guitarist Kid Congo Powers, bassist Romi Mori (lead guitar on #4), and with drummer Nick Sanderson. Pierce has written and composed all tracks and they really sound like no one else - also here. Blixa Bargeld of The Bad Seeds play guitar on "Yellow Eyes". It's quite amazing how the band seems to just continue where the 1984 album ended, considering that one half of the band wasn't taking part in the making of that album. I never got hold of any of their original albums at the time of their release, but Mother Juno was an album that I found at the local library but didn't quite appreciate back then. The only album that I really liked was The Las Vegas Story from 1984. The version, I have of Mother Juno is a remastered edition including the bonus disc titled "The Berlin Tapes", which is a very nice find. "The Breaking Hands" is a marvelous track - fans of the band would probably call it over-produced, and it IS a strange cocktail to have Robin Guthrie as album producer. Stylewise, The Gun Club and Cocteau Twins are nowhere near each other, or with regards to genre for that matter, but I really like this album as it has a fine delicate feel of garage rock, the ever-present hesitating energy of Pierce, and a productional side that tries to catch up and embrace it all, but still leaves room for all the quirkiness.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5 stars ]
