Continuing my top 50 albums of all time.
Justin Broadrick is one pretty remarkable human being. At 16 he was one of the original members of Napalm Death and changed metal forever. When he got bored of speed, Godflesh changed music again. At 19.
Godflesh had a good run, but it became pretty clear by the album, Hymns, that the band had run out of steam. But, there was a hidden track on that album called Jesu and its name and style would be the template for Broadrick’s next project. While Godflesh tried to crush your soul, Broadrick decided that he’d make music that shimmered, that was almost pretty. It would break your heart, not crush it.
Along with Mastodon and Isis, Jesu, were championed by Pitchfork during their “It’s ok to like metal” phase and I have to say it was pretty funny watching some of my more, how shall we say, opinionated, indie loving friends tell me with a straight face that Jesu isn’t metal. Just cause no one is bellowing here and there are strong shoegaze vibes, doesn’t mean that this isn’t metal at it’s core. It was just a new form of metal.
The opening track, Silver opens with a woozy, almost dream-like feel to its slow lurch. It sounds massive, like being in the centre of a huge cavern of guitars, but without being threatening. It feels more likely to carry you off than assault you. Honestly, It’s pretty easy to see how this crossed over to the shoegaze crowd.
Star comes off the blocks with one of the fastest beats on any of Broadrick’s post ND work. Now that’s hardly a challenge but it is a surprise. It also has some very unexpected, shiny, jangly guitar chords before the distortion roars in. It’s like the nuclear shockwave from Terminator 2, you’re just enjoying your day then boooooom and you’re wrapped in that bass sound. The song does slow down to normal Jesu speeds as it goes along but it gives the ep a surprising shot in the arm and stops it becoming one note.
As the ep continues, it feels like the humanity starts to drain out of it. The drummer is replaced with a machine, the clean vocals become distorted, mangled in a vocoder. It’s so subtle that you barely notice it happening until the last track envelopes you in its gloom.
Dead Eyes opens with a reversed guitar line fighting to get out from a sludge of synths as the Vocoder swallows the vocals. This is musically like drowning. Not the frantic part, this is the part where you’ve relaxed, you’ve given up and it’s all over. It’s only the guitar driving the song forward that stops the song crushing itself under its own weight. Then as the song seems to fall apart and drift off into the ether, everything clears. The fog of distortion lifts and the riff crashes in. It’s an odd choice as it completely breaks the claustrophobia of the song, but leaves the whole ep feeling a lot less downbeat than it would have been otherwise.
It’s a shame that Jesu never topped this, by this third release I think Justin had perfected the sound, and while their later releases are good, they never come close to this ep. But that’s fine because very little else does either.
Jesu may not have changed music the way Napalm Death or Godflesh did, but it can stand proudly beside them.
(Yes, I know this isn’t an album. Don’t care.)
The ways of exile 