In the swampy Pine Barren town where I was dubbed "college boy" at age 11, "Jesu" was a term spit by the trashiest of neighbors whenever they were even mildly surprised, i.e. "Jesu, this ACME Pineapple Soda's a mighty motherfucker." To this day, when I hear "Jesu," it's hard not thinking of those wiry South Jersey NASCAR-o-lytes and their puffy-haired, horribly accented girlfriends, uttering the off-key syllables, trailed by wafts of chaw or chewing gum. Even in the context of stuffy Bach's "Jesu, The Joy of Man's Desiring", I immediately think of Sebastian B of Skid Row telling me about his new pyramid scheme, his trick for spotting dear, and his forever-toppling prized stack of "porns."
In this sense, Jesu-- ex-Godflesh/Napalm Death/Techno Animal maestro Justin K. Broadrick's most recent stab at weighty brooding-- has offered some much needed psychic distance. Though I don't act like it, I want to live to 100, and to do so I likely shouldn't carry around adolescent detritus ad infinitum. Fortunately, Jesu's self-titled debut is such an epic dollop of gloomy molasses abrasions that retools the word so entirely, I can already feel Wilbur, Fuzzy, and the rest of the gang slipping away like so many contestants at the annual greased pig chase.
Founded on poky dynamics, densely crunchy instrumentation and often surprising electronic accents and submerged melodies, throughout the record, Broadrick continually exhibits the most disciplined, slowdive patience before implanting a metallic backbone. Jesu's eight tracks sound so uniformly thick-- and issue such an inexorable grind-- that it's easy to slip-slide inside the sludge and drown. Metaphysical volleys aside, the environment sustained is so submerged that its tones become habitual, disappearing into the fabric of the landscape as they continue to ring. Unlike the Heart Ache EP, Broadrick is appropriately backed here by the heavy Codeine beats of Ted Parsons (Prong, Swans, Godflesh), whose slowcore ascension make this record even more gigantic than its predecessor.
A stellar opener, the quite moving "Your Path to Divinity", gently eviscerates a heavy bass line, spotty drums, and airborne feedback bolts. Vocals materialize four minutes later, with an accompaniment of ringing notes that double the human voice. As with many of the LP's compositions, the drums fall out towards the end, generously leaving room for synth/organ and what sounds like an accordion, though is more likely something electronic. With pieces this long, codas can sprout new beginnings. Here, when the pounding returns-- as if captured with a different, booming microphone-- Broadrick's vocal notes hit a magical sustain.
That sedate flowering is quickly replaced with the crunchy Helmet dynamics of "Friends Are Evil", a distorted wire feed/assembly line leaking sparks across a concrete floor. Details are increasingly piled upon its solid base until everything blends into a net of ring-tones and locked grooves. These explosive repetitions bring to mind Hydra Head proprietor Aaron Turner's Isis, but the whispered vocal accompaniment and downer vibe are closer in tone to shoegazing. Whatever the touchstones are, Jesu mixes these ingredients into a dozy, dense amalgam.
"Tired Of Me" should strike a note with those Ride/Venus Bead fans of old: It's a suck-face tune, even if the libretto ends with a murky parade of muddied marching-band drums. "Walk on Water"-- the most totally protracted piece-- grabs hold of an upfront high hat, pitch-shift vocals, and waves of guitar angularity, and follows their wake for 11-plus minutes.
If this all sounds monotonous...well, that's partially the point. But for impatient ears, when it seems a tune might fall into tedium, Broadrick adds a buzzing guitar or shiny keyboard or some other not-so-obvious hook that expands it all over again in a cloudburst. His sense of space and three-dimensionality is at times uncanny. And for those of us who admire the patient beauty of a grimy Luxurious Bags or incandescent Jóhann Jóhansson, there ought to be more than enough intense, flat-lined passages of untouched drone to escape the rushed feeling of a pop beeline.
