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spotlight! Jesu gives industrial music a new messiah
By Michael Hargrave
mhargra1@mscd.edu

Jesu Conqueror (Hydra Head Records, 2007)

Bureaucrats just don’t rock like they used to.

American work-permit officials are forbidding mind-blowing live music from hitting the states for undisclosed reasons. England’s Jesu will just have to wait for their Los Angeles release party and slated tour with Isis. But until then Conqueror provides adequate dozy comfort.

Jesu is comprised of former Godflesh member and Napalm Death founder Justin Broadrick, bassist Diarmuid Dalton and drummer Ted Parsons.

The album features ambient male vocals, standard rock instruments, synth, pleasant melodies and leads so layered that the instrument of origin is practically indistinguishable from the rest. Such a fuzzy sound induces the kind of euphoria found in the losing of one’s self in black-and-white pictures of foggy European bridges.

Jesu proves that industrial music has successfully spawned a delicate, more emotional offspring. The songs of Conqueror don’t stay within the confines of traditional angst-ridden and psychotic expressions of political frustration. As expressed in interviews, Jesu mastermind Broadrick attempts to convey something a little more personal.

“Medicine” portrays dystopian images of a populace subdued into a meandrous stupor. Notes on the guitar lead rarely travel a full step away from each other as they efficiently emulate the lethargy of Prozac.

“Mother Earth” expresses gratitude, love and homage for the healing abilities of Gaia. What starts off with keyboards and dry guitar strumming reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails and Type O Negative shifts into a brutal yet beautiful seven-minute-long ballad. This is industrial music you would let your kid sister go out with on Friday night.

Conqueror sounds like one big epic song or a soundtrack to a colorful silent film. Its intriguing effects and instrumentation retain a consistently high caliber while its personal lyrics progress like a conversation.