is it just me or does jesu seem more at home here than on hydra head? doth broadrick on these records not have more in common with the fuzzy slo-mo murmurings of mark kozelek and alan sparhawks rockist tendencies?
i think so. in fact i’d be so bloody bold (though not really) to say that this shit is just red house painters turned way the fuck up. actually that’s a pretty stupid thing to come out with. retraction, your honour.
anyhoo. this is the new ep. and all my favourite jesu shit comes out on ep. seems more suited to the two or four tracks, thirty minutes format than the hour long long player. don’t ask me why. it’s not like i don’t have the required saintly patience for this kindof thing. coz i do. it’s just that pop music (which relatively speaking this is) should be short and sweet. it should be a fizzing burst of adrenaline.
now obviously this ain’t no shot of epinephrine. even tranqued sloths would be fiddling with the 33/45 function on the turntable on first listen. no what you get is some bastard form of chugging alt-rock (gaah, horrible term) , an almost bliss pop-like structure, melody (which admittedly is sometimes avalanche buried) and post-rock (stop, enough, please…) portentousness.
why does all this stuff (nadja, isis, pelican to a lesser extent) make me wanna dig out my snow metaphors?
or to put it another way it’s a tar-pit you can hum along to. it’s like a radio edit of that nadja covers album, with it’s deadly combo of fuzz, tunes and not quite glacial pace. all sabbath drone and phil spector miasma. it’s like a narcotics-era dylan carson smooching kevin shields. which i realize is a hideous fucking image…
where was i? yeah, jesu. opiate sun. caldo verde. four tracks. twenty five minutes.
losing streak reduced is just rawk played at the wrong speed. there’s even a lumbering solo in there. and while not quite napalm death, it’s not quite stars of the lid neither. like if swervedriver got absolutely anabolically tanked up. the most silver-esque track on here. and everything flirts felicitously with the warmer side of doom. particularly on morning light. it’s all subtle unfurls and evolutions. it’s all arpeggiated laments and vocalized malaise. it’s all about gravity weighing down on yr soul. hell, dig deep enough and there’s something approaching an ultra-tectonic stoner groove. possibly.
as an intro to broadrick’s cuddlier side this (and even more so, the silver ep) is ideal for the uninitiated. but it also obligingly serves as a portal to metal folks interested in exploring drone textures and post-something. and for drone bores and shoegazers wanting to branch out into something heavier.
ideal then. now howsabout a collaboration with kath bloom?
