First Impressions: Jesu’s “Ascension”
When importing Ascension into iTunes and getting my first glimpse at it’s hour long run-time, my immediate thought was “what the hell have I gotten myself into?” Considering I haven’t had much interest in Jesu since the initial selftitled and Silver EP releases, I really didn’t have much hope for Ascension to wow me; in fact, the majority of Justin Broadrick’s discography doesn’t do much for me. The last Jesu material I’d heard without thinking it was anything more than bland post-rock was 2008’s split with Envy, and even then, I had difficulty.
All that aside, I was pleasantly surprised around 1:30 into the first track, Fools, when it picks up out of its initial, lulling drone. It’s a good track, albeit a little long. Unfortunately, I’m lost by the time the grating, harpsichord-like sound of Birth Day immediately cuts into my ears. The indie rock qualities of Sedatives fails to impress as well, and more importantly feel out of place. Is this Broadrick’s thing now? Like I said, I really haven’t heard more than a handful of songs from each release since Silver. I’m wholly uninterested with everything up until the latter half of Brave New World and portions of Black Lies, then checked out for good before Small Wonder can finish.
Maybe Jesu has lost its charm, maybe the layered-like production numbed my brain, but I just don’t hear what’s so great here. Very few post-rock acts manage to stay on my radar or in my rotation, and even then, they’re usually the first few groups I grew attached to (Silver Mt. Zion, Godspeed). Ascension isn’t bad by any means, it’s just not that good either. It’s background music. Although a track like Sedatives doesn’t mesh with the album as a whole, at least it changes the formula. Reminds me of bands like Starflyer 59 (fuzzed out, noisy, some attack behind the drone), and pursuing something musically akin to that would be cool. Until then, wake me up for the next release, because this one has me snoring.
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