scår søünd

Ambient Rock, Experimental Metal, Drone Metal, Post-Rock, Post-Metal, Noise Rock, or whatever you want to call it, this form of loud dissonant aggressive music has become my new favorite genre. It started out Innocently enough when I was in high school and I picked up my first Neurosis album Times of Grace. Then I found out that they had a side-project that made experimental ambient music to play along with the record. The other band is named Tribes of Neurot, and the partner album was titled Grace. All I really knew were that Nerosis, although not very popular were wildly "influential" in the metal community. I would see them name-dropped in the press by very popular, and straight-forward bands like DevilDriver.

I did not really think to start classifying their music as anything but Metal for years until I started finding other bands that were being called disciples of Neurosis. At the time I was afraid that it would sound more like a cheap rip-off than an original re-imagining of a true classic. I was expecting a shot-by-shot remake of Psycho starring Vince Vaughn here. Eventually I broke down and let myself listen to Isis, Cult of Luna, and Jesu. Who are probably the biggest names in the "Post-Metal" genre. I also started listening to a lot of other "experimental" music in the interim, which helped to guide me to these other acts. What I found was that they are good. All four bands are Genius, and they do their own thing without stepping on the toes of any of the other bands in the Genre.

I was afraid of listening to Jesu most of all because the band was founded by the former guitarist/vocalist of Godflesh, who were often touted as the godfathers of Grindcore, and grindcore had gotten a bad name because it was usually basically noise, growls, and barks. There was no real musicianship to it. Thought, I have to admit that I never listened to Godflesh, and I've barely heard more than a song apiece by ten or a dozen grind bands. When I saw labels like "Shoegazing" attributed to this act I was much more interested. To hear something equally influenced by the Cocteau Twins, and Carcass finally seemed novel. Not to say that Jesu are a novelty act, they are anything but. I can hear the heart and soul of the musicians being hammered into every note like a Niponese sword-master banging out a Ninjatō.

Jesu are difficult to describe due to their amorphous nature, but they owe a lot to Slowdive, and to Neurosis. Their sound is at once crushing and beautiful. It is open and haunting. The vocals are sparse, but intelligible, used, much like they are in Shoegaze, more as another instrument than an expression of the words themselves. While the lyrics deal mostly with personal frailty this is something that could be garnered from the structure of the songs themselves, and the way the instrumentation is used.

The guitars are distorted, and the bass is deep and heavy, and the songs are slow and dirge-like, but there almost always feels like there is a bright spot off in the distance, rather than a sinking black hole. Jesu stands out in there genre by being a bit more open, and seemingly inviting with their music. It isn't as dour and depressing, or as overtly aggressive as some of their contemporaries. Time will tell, but I see a line of new acts dropping the name Jesu when asked about influences. The curse of this is that they will never be very popular among a larger audience. It seems that all of the best bands are groups who are only listened to by musicians.