Jesu's Conqueror is one of those albums I've been spending time with, and I suppose now that I've accepted that it's not the debut LP or the Heart Ache EP it's clicking with me. While the aforementioned were still close enough to their roots in Godflesh for my comfort -- at the same time moving in a direction altogether beyond Godflesh -- Conqueror is a progression from earlier Jesu, favoring even more "shoegazey" textures and melodies, and guitars that don't grind so much as they scrape along somewhere between dreary bleakness and shimmery hope; sunlight filtered through urban decay. (This was largely true for last year's Silver EP, too, and I never spent much time with that beyond a few quick listens. It seems to work better here.) I guess I still prefer those first couple of releases -- "Walk On Water" from the eponymous LP and Heart Ache's title track are two of my very favorites from '05 -- but I'm not jumping ship just yet.Needless to say, comparing Conqueror to the new NIN (or The Fragile) at all, let alone unfavorably, was pretty unfair and a bit premature. I am still enjoying Year Zero, and I still find this to be a refreshing truth (to see my jaded skepticism mostly defeated, that is), but I'd no longer necessarily say it's the better of the two, and I definitely wouldn't say that Reznor has "surpassed" Broadrick (I honestly don't know what possessed me there).
Other things I'm listening to, new and old:
Boredoms -- Super Roots 9
Earth -- Hibernaculum
Cathedral -- The Ethereal Mirror, mostly
Finntroll -- Ur Jordens Djup
Death Breath -- Stinking Up the Night
Tim Hecker -- Harmony in Ultraviolet
