ABOUT THIS ITEM

According to Webster’s dictionary ‘ascension’ is the moving to a higher or more powerful position. As a title for Jesu’s newest album, its first traditional album since 2007, it’s a perfect description.

Jesu is Justin Broadrick and he has been on this path for many years now.

‘Ascension’ may be another way station on this journey or it may be a peak but it is certainly is part of a body of work that is rising with much power and majesty. The layers of atmospheric guitars and keyboards on the ten tracks on ‘Ascension’ build relentlessly atop each other creating a huge structure that seems to flooat or glide more like a weather pattern than a piece of music. As it moves overhead you are enveloped in a new world of sonic pleasure where the edges are soft and sustained but the weight is ever present. However through this cloak of sound great beams of sunlight occasionally break, lighting the clouds in spectacular colors. All is not gray in this world.

Justin Broadrick first emerged as a force in music as part of the band Napalm Death in the mid eighties. He then formed Godflesh which cemented his place in a genre which is variously known as extreme, grindcore or just new metal. There are however, many arrows in Justin Broadrick’s quiver. Over the last twenty years he has maintained a series of projects ranging in musical style from punk to industrial to the melodic atmospherics of his current band, Jesu. This ability to step outside the confines of musical convention sets him apart creatively from other writer musicians who have been working in his field over this period. Despite, or perhaps because of this stylistic diversity he has attracted an obsessively loyal fanbase and a reliably positive response from critics. The question is always, How does he sound so light while staying so heavy? Jesu’s output has been spasmodic but of a uniform high quality. All instruments are played by Justin Broadrick and apart from the occasionally guest vocalist
(Jarboe from The Swans) he handles all vocals..