Jesu

Jesu is the most melodic and accessible of <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Justin Broadrick</a>'s many projects, incorporating heavy guitar riffs and ambient textures into expansive yet pop-informed song structures. Initially devised as a successor to industrial metal juggernaut <a href="spotify:artist:5A4ebXQf38xWIq0xSWLhsS">Godflesh</a> following their initial breakup, Jesu's self-titled 2004 debut album was a bleak, sludgy set of post-metal with noticeably cleaner vocals than <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a>'s former bands. Subsequent EPs, split releases, and albums like 2007's Conqueror found Jesu incorporating more shoegaze and post-punk influences as well as electronic elements. <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a> started the <a href="spotify:artist:0ELKUeGTYJoKMUzWFytEbE">Pale Sketcher</a> offshoot to explore Jesu's ambient techno-informed side, while the main project returned to a guitar-focused sound with 2011's Ascension. Following collaborations with <a href="spotify:artist:4G0XDEk7RbA4BBCTs917U9">Sun Kil Moon</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:5WcW1WoKdWhekWQbyFRf9Q">Dirk Serries</a>, as well as a preoccupation with other projects like a reunited <a href="spotify:artist:5A4ebXQf38xWIq0xSWLhsS">Godflesh</a> and techno alias <a href="spotify:artist:0JP4tVwUQtzOtmtn4ktQB3">JK Flesh</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a> revivified Jesu in 2020 with genre-blurring releases such as the full-length Terminus, and continued with the 2023 drone-metal EP Pity/Piety.

Birmingham-born musician and producer <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Justin Broadrick</a> has been a fixture of England's extreme music scene since his membership in the earliest recording lineup of <a href="spotify:artist:3UqRgrDIQ208yNGiWKRMNt">Napalm Death</a> in the mid-'80s. Also a member of several other bands and projects (Head of David, <a href="spotify:artist:0wnipczytUzHtDCCoCWV6L">Techno Animal</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6xdxTUuOgCVPAt64omekuZ">Final</a>, etc.), he is probably best known for his leadership of pioneering industrial ensemble <a href="spotify:artist:5A4ebXQf38xWIq0xSWLhsS">Godflesh</a>. Having officially laid that hallowed institution to rest in 2002, <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a> turned his attention to a new entity, Jesu, which he named after the last track on <a href="spotify:artist:5A4ebXQf38xWIq0xSWLhsS">Godflesh</a>'s intended swan song, Hymns. Essentially a solo project with <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a> handling vocals, guitars, bass, and programming, Jesu's 2004 debut EP, Heart Ache, consisted of two 20-minute-long meditations melding uncompromising sonic textures with seemingly abstract musings and a few hard-won melodic rewards.

But with Jesu's eponymous full-length release, former <a href="spotify:artist:5A4ebXQf38xWIq0xSWLhsS">Godflesh</a> associate drummer Ted Parsons (also ex-<a href="spotify:artist:6SER9tY2pDIDVWVf5Ql97B">Prong</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:79S80ZWgVhIPMCHuvl6SkA">Swans</a>, etc.) and bassist Diarmuid Dalton were called in to help fill out a more evenly paced, and certainly more focused (though only slightly shorter, at an average of ten minutes apiece), set of ambient, droning, and semi-industrial extrapolations. Jesu, the album, received almost unqualified critical acclaim across the world, and encouraged <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a> to move ahead with his new endeavor, resulting in another form-challenging EP in 2006's Silver. At the end of the year, <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a> was performing with <a href="spotify:artist:2e7hYqRjL82c1nIoREHc4J">Sunn 0)))</a> on a tour of the U.K. Early in 2007, second full-length Conqueror was released concurrently with the EP Sun Down/Sun Rise. A split release with <a href="spotify:artist:4QK3YJ6hzJdhJHE9q7kbVV">Eluvium</a> appeared in July. The Lifeline EP and Pale Sketches, a compilation of stray material that didn't fit on any of the prior Jesu releases, were both issued that October.

A pair of split recordings came out in 2008: one with <a href="spotify:artist:0CfjW2VuMdrhWodHtG7DWi">Envy</a>, and another with <a href="spotify:artist:4y0xdRQ6jYvUUxRB71b514">Battle of Mice</a>. Jesu also released a more electronic-leaning EP titled Why Are We Not Perfect. Toward the end of 2009, Jesu issued the Opiate Sun EP, on which <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a> performed all instruments and vocals without assistance. Infinity, a nearly 50-minute, suite-like composition that featured <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a> on all instruments, including live drums, also arrived in 2009. The following year, he unveiled his <a href="spotify:artist:0ELKUeGTYJoKMUzWFytEbE">Pale Sketcher</a> alias; he remixed each Pale Sketches track and issued the results as Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Ghostly+International%22">Ghostly International</a>. Later in the year, Heart Ache was reissued and combined with Dethroned (previously unreleased material dating back to 2003). The Christmas EP, including remixes by other <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a> projects, appeared in December.

Jesu re-emerged in 2011 with the more conventional, songlike Ascension on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Caldo+Verde%22">Caldo Verde</a> (run by <a href="spotify:artist:4G0XDEk7RbA4BBCTs917U9">Sun Kil Moon</a>'s <a href="spotify:artist:0qt6QSruHshcWT9QOzyfZp">Mark Kozelek</a>). <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a> went deeper and darker on 2013's Everyday I Get Closer to the Light from Which I Came, a five-track album that indulged not just his melodic art metal, but also the influences of dub, post-punk, and electronic music. By this time, <a href="spotify:artist:5A4ebXQf38xWIq0xSWLhsS">Godflesh</a> had reunited and were playing gigs at festivals; an EP (Decline & Fall) and full-length (A World Lit Only by Fire) both appeared in 2014. Nevertheless, <a href="spotify:artist:3jxpqvEsYc7vrbihTd2F5A">Broadrick</a> returned to the Jesu moniker with a long-promised collaboration with <a href="spotify:artist:4G0XDEk7RbA4BBCTs917U9">Sun Kil Moon</a>, which appeared on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Caldo+Verde%22">Caldo Verde</a> in January 2016. Their second collaborative effort, 30 Seconds to the Decline of Planet Earth, arrived in May 2017. <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Hospital+Productions%22">Hospital Productions</a> released a different version of Christmas in 2018, this time in conjunction with a Paris Fashion Week show by designer Yang Li, which included a remix by <a href="spotify:artist:00NwpiTtYKYzE6yEhSbFIk">Prurient</a>.

In 2020, following a remastered deluxe edition of Ascension, Jesu issued an experimental electronic pop EP titled Never. This preceded the full-length Terminus, which explored themes such as rejection, nostalgia, and loneliness. Heart Ache was remastered and reissued in 2021, and a deluxe remaster of Jesu arrived in 2022. Bringing the project back to its drone-metal beginnings, Pity/Piety, an EP consisting of two slow, side-long tracks, appeared at the end of 2022. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia & Paul Simpson, Rovi