Jesuliscious

One thing I love is when you see people so psyched about a band that you yourself feel compelled to plunk down some hard earned cash and see said band despite never having heard a note. It's always a cool to go into a show with few expectations and simple blind faith in your friends. That was the case with Jesu this Thursday. Fellow Napper, John Cramer had been raving about Jesu for a while now (often even on NAP itself) and when Melissa Lonchambon (Sharks and Sailors) and John Dannar (Blades) joined in on the chorus that pretty much cinched it. No, I wasn't going to preview anything just walk in, pay my $14 bucks, and take it in.

Knowing very little about the show beyond hype from friends, I was under the misguided notion that all the bands that night were touring bands. So there I was digging on this band called Awake and trying to figure out why the bassist looked so much like Trey Levigne of Jonx fame except taller and why the guitarist had a Lozenge sticker. As it turns out it was Trey (looking taller because he was on a fucking stage!) and the band was, in fact, from Houston. Go figure! It was an excellent set that unfortunately, due to it's opening slot, saw only a fraction of the final crowd that was at Walter's that evening. The music was slow and melodic with lots of ringing chords - think a sound somewhere between Earth and Codeine. Now this is a bit different that what you'd hear on say myspace as Awake seems to be (from what I can make out) a one-man band with a rotating cast of players. I could be wrong about this as their myspace is intentionally obtuse but the albums seem very much a one-man 4-track endeavor. Personally, I thought the live performance was more engaging than the recorded work but then again I like to hear bands converse on stage. That night the interplay of the instruments and the reverb heavy vocals were simply hypnotic especially on a song like Redshift (which I submitted to this week's podcast). It was a shame that I only caught the last two and a half songs but I'm really hoping to catch a full set next time - really really!

Wolves In the Throne Room notes and mid-range guitars just became lulling after a while - a massage of sound waves if you will. Maybe I just don't get the aesthetic [ consisting of a drummer, two guitarists, and no bass] but the band wasn't heavy because there was no low-end to drag you down (bassists this is your cue to take a bow). The 16 followed and I have to say it was horribly ho-hum. The songs would generally start with a pretty melodic part then shift into 16th note metal with cookie monster vocals. I mean it wasn't bad and the players were good but it was all very much a constant sound with little variation. Beyond the pretty and the metal shift there wasn't much in the way of tone or dynamics. The 16th note assault was hardly driving or punishing simply due to the lack of dynamics. After a while of the same rhythm, it started to get a Phillip Glass effect where you kind of drift. Though, unlike listening to Glass it was hardly engaging. Short of it all was Awake put on a much better show and the Dio devil sign was wasted on these guys. I will say this much - they got the award for the most manly band I've smelled in quite a while. From five feet away the band seemed to have embraced the musky sweat of a long hot tour - bully for them.

Now, I should point out before I go on about Jesu that I was never a fan of Godflesh. Which is not to say that a bunch people I knew weren't into Godflesh, just that for me it all seemed a bit contrived. The electronic drums and the riffs just never worked for me. Sorry. Jesu on the other hand came off as a much more organic beast. Big fat slow drums and bass beating down the landscape as Justin K Broadrick 7-string guitar's varied tones rang in the air - it's all very epic stuff. Sure, I'd argue, it's an update on Codeine 90s melodic plod but it's a damn good one with Broadrick's touring band laying-on the sound thick and fat. In contrast to Wolves, the fewer notes and greater space between them gave Jesu more power in its opening song than Wolves could muster in an entire set. Broadrich has a great knack for altering his guitar's tone ever so slightly within and between songs and when Jesu throws in some backing tracks on a Mac Powerbook the whole effect gives us something the previous band utterly lacked - texture. Broadrick simply has faith in an instrument's ability to communicate and has no qualms about letting them take their time and breathe; he's simply not one to rush a good story. So you should take one lesson away from a Jesu show which is simply to embrace what happens between the notes.


Finally here is some crappy video with utterly blown out audio.




Links
Awake
Wolves in the Throne Room
Jesu