In this day and age, GODFLESH is unanimously regarded as one of the pioneers of industrial metal, but for some reason, I never really caught up with them before their disbandment some 20-something years ago. In the wake of their breakup, the mastermind behind this industrial monolith, Justin Broadrick, kicked off a more shoegazey affair, JESU, which was named after the last song on the last GODFLESH album. It took me some time to eventually find out about this group, but as luck would have it, I did come across their early gems during the peak of my most vehement post-metal phase back in the day. Obviously, I fell for their sound immediately. Then again, if you were a true 1990s kid, how could you not love the very idea of a metal outfit reminiscing on MY BLOODY VALENTINE‘s ”Loveless” from the glory days of yore?! That’s pretty much what JESU did on their third release, the 4-track EP entitled “Silver,” released on April 11 th, 2006, via Hydra Head Records. Yeah, you couldn’t possibly get much more 1990s-tinted with atmospheric and slow-crushing shoegaze-metal.
The title track remains JESU‘s most popular track on Spotify – still, after 20 years! – and it’s no surprise; it is one hell of a track! The band took the droney approach of their debut and sprinkled nice melodies all over it – and there you have it: lethargic alt-rock riffs drowned in an ocean of distortion. The song’s tempo could make stoners weep out of jealousy – it is slow to the point of almost grinding to a halt, but you don’t even need to sport a habit of smoking pot with a passion to appreciate the immersive and Zen-like motion. The riffs are airy, not oppressive like those in, say, stoner doom, and the clean vocals resonate with the air of, well, NIRVANA at their most pop, which is basically to say that the vocals almost have a somewhat THE BEATLES-like aura to them. Paired with a strong sense of melody that makes the song – well, timeless.
Next up, “Star” is carved from a different branch altogether. The upbeat drums make the song sound quite atypical for JESU. I mean, the drum beat could be from some mid-1990s skate-punk banger. When the vocals kick in, such impressions dissolve immediately; there’s way too much reverb for your average pop-punk song, for one thing, but the 1990-ish sentiment is still strongly present. While the song is quite a departure from the band’s signature drone, there’s something charming in the song, largely thanks to Broadrick‘s vocals. The noise-like lead melody somewhere around the 5-minute mark is pretty lovely, too. All in all, the song is quite cute, so I can put up with the pop-punk beat, even.
Then, “Wolves” return to form with 8 minutes of heart-wrenchingly beautiful noise. The tempo is, once again, closer to the doom-metal standard, but the riffs, slow and heavy as they crush, aren’t too overbearing. The Brit-pop-esque vocals help a lot. The funny thing is, there’s something rather appealing in this mixture of shoegaze, heavy riffs, and Broadrick‘s somewhat off-hand vocal delivery, even though there isn’t really that much happening in the song, considering it clocks in around the 8-and-a-half-minute mark! Minimalism is an art form in and of itself – and one that’s diabolically difficult to master, but Broadrick has done one hell of a good job here. The feel of the song, let alone the album as a whole, is highly mesmerizing.
The closer, “Dead Eyes,” is yet another meditation on beautiful noisescapes. The vocals are fed through a Vocoder, which is a nice touch: the heavily effected vocals work wonders in tandem with the fuzzy riffs. As the shortest of the bunch, clocking only 6 minutes and 26 seconds, the song feels pretty catchy. I guess it must have been the most accessible JESU song from their most accessible release at the time. I wouldn’t say these songs sound particularly happy, but the overall feel on this EP is a tad less brushed with slow-crushing melancholy than in the previous two endeavors. For me, these four tracks are special, of course, because I found them at just the right time. This type of heavy shoegaze was just what the doctor ordered when I had just recently made acquaintance with the post-metal monoliths of the time. I wouldn’t say this is metal in the strictest sense of the word, but it certainly goes down smoothly if you’re into the immersive soundscapes of, say, post-metal and atmospheric sludge. Yeah, this is lighter stuff, but still heavy enough to make a seismic impact.
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist
- Silver
- Star
- Wolves
- Dead Eyes
Lineup
Justin K. Broadrick – vocals, guitars, programming
Ted Parsons – drums on track 1
Diarmuid Dalton – bass
Label
Hydra Head Records
