Conqueror
Jesu returns with nearly an hour of weighty, otherworldly heaviness that defies the default designation of metal. The opening titular cut has as much in common with early Pink Floyd as it does with band member Justin Broadrick’s other outfits, Napalm Death and Godflesh. That said, there's plenty here to enrage the savage beast, such as the dark and detuned opening of "Old Year," the icy epic "Mother Earth" and the recording's centerpiece, the restless and imaginative 10-minute Flaming Lips-esque "Weightless and Horizontal," which displays the band's debt to space rock without apology and without any sacrifice of aforementioned heaviness. As good asConqueroris, it's hardly the band's masterpiece. The work laid here suggests that Jesu has much more exploring and refining to do but this recording is as good a place as any for listeners to begin anticipating the moment when this outfit climbs up from the underground to reap the rich rewards it so clearly deserves. A fantastic and darkly inspiring work.––Jedd Beaudoin