Jesu – Heartache EP

An industrial area, at first sight, just like that, isn't exactly very aesthetically pleasing, nor appeasing:
the figure is rather severe - the architects weren't really asked to build a fucking Disneyland either anyway - the ominous buzzing of its mechanical entrails is perpetual and overpowering, and to top it all off, the toxic emanations deliver at home, no delay, the latest trends in cancers, hepatitis and other deformities in your little baby. Quite a repelling sum up, but a peculiar fascination draws you in this maëlstrom of howling insalubrity. As you dive deeper within this - apparently hostile - universe, your perception starts changing, insidiously. There you are, with the afflicted, resigned look of the worker, for whom the machine is not just an absurd mass of mildewing metal; that machine becomes your friend, because without her you cannot feed your kids and you find yourself in a very delicate situation, and it's not Frankie Teardrop who'll come tell me otherwise. The tyrannical and frozen appearance of the automaton goes away and you can now hear distinctly a heart beat behind the metal sheets, while, touched by divine grace, you seek some comfort and humanity in its robotised arms...

Hyper saturated and greasy guitars, of the hyper-calorific diet type, monstruously ever present bass, crushing, smothering... As soon as the first menacing notes of Heartache ring, there is no possible doubt, we're in familiar grounds; that of Justin Broadrick's and his late Godflesh. Logically, some aspects of Jesu's music inevitably echo its creator's previous musical ventures (who is for now the only mind behind the wheel, as we wait for some former play mates, there's word of Dermot Dalton and Ted Parsons for the next record). The arrival of the intractable rhythm machine completes the set: Jesu is a pachyderm, no need for record-breaking speeds to wreck the whole place. And when wading in these sinister swamps for a few minutes now, we start thinking there's no way we'll see the light of day again any time soon, the usual seismic rumble suddenly clears to leave room for well defined melodies, keyboards, voices, glorious, glowing guitar drapes, clear voice, bewitching reverb, piano... The two tracks that make up this EP which isn't really one (40 minutes of joy) toy with contrast and ambivalence between the grim mechanical atmospheres that were typical of Godflesh on one side and intense moments of pure illuminated, desperate trance on the other.

With Jesu and this Heartache, Justin Broadrick achieves the notable feat of pointing out all the beauty, all the splendor that what seems devoid of it can conceal.
The return of an influent artist, who seems to have no time to rest on his laurels.


Links:
godflesh.com
dryrun.net