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| Justin Broadrick has come a long way since helping pioneer industrial metal in Britain’s black country. His late-80’s Birmingham group Godflesh helped shape modern metal, influencing countless bands with its use of droning discordant guitars, bounding, slow drum machine rhythms and Broadrick’s grunts and screams. |
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Ever since these early days of success and recognition, Broadrick has always looked forward and challenged listeners to join him on his experimental musical journey. But with a typically hard-to-please solid metal fan base, many listeners have since fallen by the wayside, refusing to recognise other projects such as the superb underground hip hop side-project Techno Animal. His current group, Jesu, have been going since 2003 and have just put out their second full length album, Conqueror, which will probably alienate a few more hardcore metal fans, unable to get on with the ‘soft’ indie pop sound. But hopefully Conqueror will equally attract a few more intelligent rock fans and patient listeners.
From start to finish Conqueror is an exceptional album. The music is ambient in a way many critics have compared to the ‘shoegazing’ sound of the early 90s, most notably My Bloody Valentine, and post-rock. Conqueror is not an abrasive album, but one that builds its emotions through a mixture of mellow and harsh sounds, merged into a Phil Spector-style wall of sound - layering guitars and drums into a dark yet gentle and subtle symphony.
But whereas last year’s Silver EP tried to create this perfect balance - and failed in that tracks did sound soft and lightweight - Conqueror succeeds at being extremely heavy but uplifting and euphoric. It reminds me much of the Cure’s Disintegration. While Conqueror might struggle to find a place as secure in my affections as that particular masterpiece, it does achieve a similar sense of joy through sadness - making your emotions work through despair to find hope on the other side - but not in the manipulative way of emotionally forceful acts like Coldplay.
‘Brighteyes,’ the heaviest tune on the album, begins as minimalist drone or death metal. A crunching guitar riff and the simplest of drum beats pound machine-like for a minute, before being joined by Broadrick’s new soft falsetto vocals, harmony and lingering melody. The track twists almost unnoticeably, and it is only at its end that you realise how minimal a point you started at. This is typical of the album - there are so many styles and influences in there which are subtly fused together into something totally, unexpectedly original.
However, the album’s 10-minute standout, ‘Weightless and Horizontal,’ adopts the opposite approach. It begins with ghostly whistling before other instruments are gradually brought in. And although the track never really gathers the crushing power of ‘Brighteyes’ or other tracks, it weaves with a more subtle and enticing power. It utilises various sounds and instrumentation, slightly changing them throughout while still maintaining a drone-like, hypnotic power that only lets up for breaks of further gothic noises before throwing heavy percussion seamlessly back into the mix.
Every track seems at first similar, but what makes Conqueror so great is what is underneath, audible only when you give the music your full attention - something I hope any dedicated music listener will do, even if they cannot hear the beauty here. If I have to find fault with Conqueror, it’s that Broadrick and cohorts have finally got the mix spot on and maybe we have too much of a good thing with the album lingering slightly longer than is necessary. But this is only a minor quibble for an album boasting eight remarkable tracks.
Jesu have created an intelligent, emotional album which deserves all the praise that will hopefully be heaped upon it. Conqueror demands further listens for its dense layering and subtle detail to be recognised, so please give it a go. And if you are a die hard metal fan and think Broadrick has gone soft, just strip away the layers and underneath you will hear an industrial metal album Godflesh fans would readily worship - but with so much more. |
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| Michael Johns - 9/10 |
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Name:
James
| Date:
12/03/07 | Reply
Good review mate. This is a truly brilliant record. I was going to review myself actually - if no one else did. Saved me a job!
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