Explosions In The Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone: For those that follow the instrumental post-rock likes of Godspeed You Black Emperor (I'll let you decide where to put the "!") and Mogwai it's unlikely that they're unfamiliar with Explosions In The Sky, and those who saw Friday Night Lights are more familiar with them than they probably realize since they provided the score for the film. Whatever similarities they may share with Godspeed and Mogwai, I've still managed to find EitS to be just a bit more interesting - they follow a similar formula of expansive tracks that build and build over time with lots of repetitive motion, often exploding with vibrant, violent crescendos, but Explosions In The Sky have just a tinge of metal to their sound that interests me more than the other bands.
Also available is a limited-edition import with a second disc of remixes which sounds to be intriguing.
Jesu - Conqueror: This second full-length release from the remnant of heavyweight Godflesh has a lot riding on it. Where the self-titled debut album merely established Jesu as a branch off of Godflesh, it was clear that much growth was needed before the band could really stand on its own. Last year's Silver EP showed some promised that Justin Broadrick was following through on what Jesu could accomplish, but something still felt tied to the past. Well, a year later I'm putting it down now: Jesu has done it. The links to Godflesh are there, but this one stands on its own. It's dark, brooding, and heavy, but there's something optimistic going on in the mix - not to mention the vocal direction that Broadrick has chosen to take, going for clear, smooth, sung vocals instead of the distant yelled vocals that were typically buried in the mix in Godflesh. This is the metal album to beat right now, and this is the one that really establishes them as a monster in the genre - but it may also be the one that sheds them of fans hanging on from the Godflesh days, hoping for more of the same. They're going to be missing out. Dare I say that this is Jesu's Pure?
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
Explosions In The Sky is a great band. i have "Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever"...and it's one big hunk of interesting music.
and hmmm, i didn't even know Viktor Kraus had put out solo records. see, proof that i do not own every album ever made (yet).
2 - Tom Johnson
I have to admit that I hadn't seen a thing about this new Krauss release until I started putting this together yesterday, Mark - it just poppped up on the radar suddenly. Weird.
But you've definitely got to get on that first one - it's a fantastic album. It's almost a Frisell album, actually, as he "guests" on the entire thing, and it's styled after Frisell's late 90s Americana material, but with slightly less twang, I'd say. It's a very, very good album. A definite must-have for Frisell fans.
3 - Tom Johnson
Hey, I just noticed that I'm being billed as "returning" on the Music front page. I'm always around, I'm always here. Overlooked Alternatives just happens to appear when important things need pointing out. Overlooked Alternatives is like the Batman - the beacon of good music appears and suddenly Overlooked Alternatives knows that it's been called to action! But only then!
4 - zingzing
ahh... jesu... justin broadrick has recently, and very quickly, become one of my guitar gods. the man just does it right. i'm glad he chose a different path for jesu. godflesh is a mighty band, but they were around for a long time and i think the sound has become exhausted to a degree. maybe if you own every godflesh album and can't get over it, maybe jesu would seem like a retreat of sorts.
but it's just so goddamn beautiful. and slooow. a lot of the more hipster-friendly metal that has come out lately has taken certain elements, like ridiculously heavy guitars, the growled vocals, the incredibly dark textures and moods... and they've elongated it, or mixed it with other genres, etc.
broadrick seems to ditch almost everything about metal, except the heaviness, and go headlong into shoegaze through the back door. it's a lovely thing. if you ever wished my bloody valentine had been more metal than punk (isn't anything) or pop (loveless), this is the way to go.
5 - Tom Johnson
I completely agree, Zingzing. Godflesh had run its course and it was obvious that, by Hymns and maybe even Songs Of Love And Hate, it was time to hang it up and move on. Really, I kind of gave up on them when they brought in live drums on the studio stuff - I really didn't find that to give their stuff an interesting edge, rather, it just made them more like everything else that was out. I've since made friends with the later Godflesh material but I still find the early drum-machine backed stuff way more interesting and brutal.
6 - zingzing
i just got "streetcleaner" yesterday. my god. i only have a few godflesh albums... and half of those are on tape and i can't seem to find them.
in fact, the last one i've got is from 1994... "pure" is one of the tapes i am missing... i think i shall go after it tonight.
i've heard some of their later albums, but it was a few years ago now... if i wanted to know the full beauty of godflesh, which album would you suggest?
7 - zingzing
and yeah... by the time the rest of the world catches up to broadrick, it's time for him to move on into something new, ie-jesu.
he's got a lot of other projects he's working on right now as well... we shall see where that goes.
8 - Tom Johnson
I'm a big fan of Selfless. It was their last great album, unfortunately. Streetcleaner, Pure, and Selfless are the must-have albums, but don't dismiss the EPs from that era, either - Slavestate and Merciless offer some interesting remixes and dubs of album tracks and Messiah is a recently released disc of leftover tracks from between Pure and Selfless. Those should leave you much to chew on for a long, long time - and then grab the final few of albums (and the remix album, Love And Hate In Dub, which is actually more interesting than the album the songs came from.) Just be prepared for a big step down in quality.
Broadrick's got some interesting projects - some I like, some I don't care for. One that I think is really interesting is Techno Animal, sort of a blending of the Godflesh sound with hip-hop. It's heavy, but has a very cool beat, or at least does so on the one album of theirs that I managed to track down, Brother Of The Bomb. He's also got rabid fans, so finding most of his projects can be very difficult - once they're out of print, they get real hard to find. Buy 'em if you find 'em, or just forget you ever saw them because you'll live to regret passing them up - believe me!
9 - zingzing
i do have "selfless," which is magnificent. i also have the "slavestate" ep in my tapes somewhere. "pure" and "merciless" will be my next hunts, if i can't find my tapes...
i've got an ice album, the napalm death he was on and one of the god releases... but it's jesu and godflesh that really get me. techno animal was pretty much him and kevin martin, right? same as ice, i believe... and god, too, if i am not mistaken.
those seem to me more like kevin martin's projects, whom i like... but not as much as broadrick. i remember "brother of the bomb," but i haven't heard it in years.
"pure!" tonight!