It seems strange to feel nostalgic about this, but then you remember that 2012 was now more than a decade ago and that strangeness goes away some. Snail released what was their second post-reunion album and third overall full-length, Terminus (review here), in May of that year, and while they’ve done two more albums since, it’s important to note that at the time, it wasn’t a sure thing they’d do another one at all. After an initial run amid the earlier after-grunge blowouts that became stoner metal that led them to their 1993 debut, Snail (review here), and the next year’s All Channels Are Open EP (discussed here), it would be 15 years before they returned with 2009’s Meteorcity-issued Blood (review here, discussed here), which was mostly based on demos from their original era.

That detail is crucial, especially since it meant that Terminus would be the first batch of newer material they’d worked on since the early 1990s. I remember being surprised at how metal some of the riffing was across the 10 tracks/46 minutes of the release, and in the guitar squealies in the verse of hooky opener “Recursion,” that impression remains all this time later, the inhale/exhale of their verses and choruses flowing as they build and let go of tension. The work of then-lead guitarist Eric Clausen should also be noted here. His slow-Slayer creeper solo in “Recursion,” a bit of ZZ Top swagger in the subsequent “Galaxies’ Lament” and the bluesier take alongside the piano transitions in “Matchbook” set a varied approach that continues to expand in the wah of “Burn the Flesh,” the classic-heavy style of “Terminus,” etc., as his play and that of guitarist/vocalist Mark Johnson coalesce and bring arrangement nuance to set alongside Johnson‘s sneakily intricate vocals — listen to the layering in “Matchbook” or how the watery effect in “Circles” adds to that song’s ’60s-psych atmosphere, which is not to mention the Alice in Chains-style self-harmonies of “Ritual” or the subtle Queens of the Stone Age-ism of the verses in the closing title-track, complete with whispers and all — and give the original trio of Johnson, bassist/backing vocalist/producer Matt Lynch and drummer Marty Dodson a way to expressively jam and grow the context of their songs on the whole. This would be Clausen‘s last record with Snail, as he left in 2013 and started a new band called Division Process, but his contributions here aren’t to be discounted just because he may have been on his way out at the time.

And it should be noted that the ‘metal’ vibe that comes through in some of the songs — certainly in the aggro surge of “Hippy Crack,” which moves from its Tool-ish buildup into a speedier sorta-noise rocker that feels like it was of a kin with their ’90s work, barks and growls and all — is filtered through Snail‘s own signature rolling groove. Listening through “Circles,” the willfully grandiose crashes of “Love Theme” or the definitive march in “Ritual,” the argument for Dodson (and the band as a whole) as underrated makes itself, and for much more than just the cowbell coinciding with the Sabbathian turn late in “Burn the Flesh.” His play universally enhances the material — that is, there is no song underserved by what he brings to it — even in absent stretches like the verses of “Try to Make It” that make the chorus land that much heavier, and in company Lynch‘s warm, weighted bass tone, the rhythm section captures a largesse in a cut like “Burn the Flesh” that not only gives Clausen room to rip out lead lines even as the march is barely underway, but sounds big enough to warrant the Pink Floyd lyrical references and the meditative-realization narrative of the chorus, slow but not staid, deeply arranged in the vocals, gorgeous in its consuming totality.

“Love Theme” seems to reference the title-track of Blood if only for its single-word repetition of “love” before “peace and happiness” fill out its only lyrics — what more do you really need? — and its setting up the more actively-psych second half of the record is essential coming out of “Burn the Flesh” and “Hippy Crack” before it and leading into the druggy “Ritual” — its second/third chug-marching verse starting with the line “Pills untils we are fills” — after, the progression there allowing Johnson a moment in a standalone layer that prefaces the vocals-only ending on the line “So gone away” ahead of the drifting start of “Circles.” That song taps a spirit like Monster Magnet at their psychedelic best, and is all the more flowing with keys playing more of a role as the organ in “Try to Make It” seems to push deeper into the direction laid out by the vague Easternism in the winding lead guitar lines prior, but the play with silence and the languid, jammier finish of “Circles” — all sustained by Lynch‘s steady bassline — is a highlight nonetheless as the band carries the listener forward toward the sun, maybe realizing a bit of what “Burn the Flesh” was talking about lyrically in its willingness to feel like it’s losing cohesion without actually doing so (again, it’s that bass holding it together).

Terminus makes both its variety and its core heavy modus apparent early, as “Galaxies’ Lament” picks up with a more melodic verse than “Recursion,” before shifting into its own more energetic chorus, but Snail never seem to give it all away at once in terms of songwriting, and each of the 10 tracks throughout offers something of its own that adds to the impression of the whole. The metal-shred in “Try to Make It” — the lyrics of which open themselves to multiple interpretations, some of which seem like a direct contrast to the open groove of the verses and maybe that’s the point as the chorus explodes to enter — is perhaps prefaced in “Galaxies’ Lament,” but in the later piece, it adds purpose to the chaos as a swell of feedback rises to consume the song by its finish, which thuds out and leaves residual echo as a transition to “Terminus,” which it should be said, starts as though nothing just happened and Snail didn’t just pull apart a solar system.

The line “She fears change” in “Terminus” marks the ascent to louder volume, hard-hitting, bell-tolling chugging riffery, lyrics reaffirming the mortality of all things, and that indeed is where Snail bring Terminus to its end, by riding out that part on a well-earned slow fade. Whispers come and go, voices in and out, and the last vocal line is a child’s voice saying, “Okay it’s time to wake up now,” before the album gives way to silence. Fair enough.

I will not discount the work Snail did either on 2015’s Feral (review here) or 2021’s Fractal Altar (review here) as they returned to their original trio lineup and continued to expand their sound, but Terminus set in motion a lot of what they’d become on those two records while having a personality of its own that stands out from the rest of their discography. As their third long-player (and one that would seem to be desperate for a reissue, perhaps on vinyl), its manifestation of who Snail was as a band at the time felt duly landmark, triumphant, and while I dug Blood a lot — and I mean a lot —  this was the record that cemented me as a fan of the band, and I’m glad to say I’ve remained one ever since.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thank you for reading.

—

I had kind of a beautiful time yesterday listening to that record. I’d gone swimming in the morning at the gym — me and the other old men doing laps for the early AM — for the first time since just after I hurt my knee in October and was pleased to find my leg didn’t fall off, and I sat on the couch in my usual spot, lightly stoned while The Pecan was at school, and just listened and took some notes and enjoyed it. After doing the Quarterly Review all week — not painful, but hardly relaxing in terms of how one experiences a release — it was refreshing. I’d finished the QR post that went up today, set up the back end for stuff on Monday, and could actually relax for a few minutes. I needed that.

It had been a week. Wednesday was my mother’s birthday and my family came over for dinner. The weather has been unseasonably warm, which is both pleasant and apocalyptic, so we managed to get out at least for a few short walks — went to the Turtle Back Zoo on Monday — and The Pecan went back to school on Tuesday, which I think all three of us were ready for. That, however, caused him to feel emotions, which he generally expresses by wrecking shit. See also when he’s excited about a thing, tired, arguing about food, etc. It’s pretty much been one thing into the next all week and I don’t mind telling you that’s fucking exhausting. No, kid, I can’t play Bluey games with you for seven hours. Believe me when I say I’m sorry. Maybe if I was 31 instead of 41 and we’d been able to make a baby happen when we first explored the idea, I’d be as much fun as Bandit. I suspect not.

But we’ll never know. I’m trying to remember to enjoy this time while I have it, to be grateful for what I have. I do not always succeed at this. Looking back at that writeup for All Channels Are Open 10 years ago, linked above, was a trip. I was losing jobs all over the place. I am fortunate now to not be in the labor market, or surely I’d be back in retail by now, being treated like subhuman garbage and taking way too seriously shit that matters not in the slightest. Work like that gets in your head; it’s hard to step out of it mentally, to keep your perspective. I have a hard time doing this generally, and in parenting, at which I more often than not feel like an utter failure. Every day, for example.

Next week, five more days of Quarterly Review. Today at 5PM Eastern, new Gimme show: http://gimmemetal.com

Thanks if you listen and thanks for reading.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, hydrate, watch your head, all that stuff. It’s a new year, so… I don’t know. Just keep going. You can do that.

FRM.

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According to my notes, today is Day Three of the Fall 2021 Quarterly Review. Are you impressed to have made it this far? I kind of am, but, you know, I would be. I hope you’ve managed to find something you dig over the course of the first 20 records, and if not, why not? I’ve certainly added to a few year-end lists between debut albums, regular-old albums and short releases. Today’s no different. Without giving away any secrets ahead of time, this is a pretty wacky stylistic spread from the start and that’s how I like it. Maybe by next Tuesday it’ll all make a kind of sense, and maybe it won’t. In any case, this is apparently my idea of fun, so let’s have fun.

Quarterly Review #21-30:

Thief, The 16 Deaths of My Master

Someone used the phrase “techno for metalheads” in an email to me the other day (about something else) and I can’t get it out of my head concerning Thief‘s The 16 Deaths of My Master. From the swelling distortion of opener “Underking” to the odd bit of harpsicord that shows up in “Scorpion Mother” to the bassy rumble underscoring “Fire in the Land of Endless Rain,” the post-everything “Lover Boy,” droning “Life Clipper,” lazyman’s hip-hop on “Gorelord” and “Crestfaller” and Beck-on-acid finale in “Seance for Eight Oscillators,” there’s certainly plenty of variety to go around, but in the dance-dream “Apple Eaters” and goth-with-’90s-beatmaking “Bootleg Blood” and pretend-your-car-ride-is-a-movie-soundtrack “Wing Clipper,” the metallic underpinning of Dylan Neal (also Botanist) is still there, and the lyrical highlight “Teenage Satanist” rings true. Still, songs like the consuming washer “Night Spikes and subsequent drum’n’bass-vibing “Victim Exit Stage Left” are inventive, fascinating, short and almost poppy in themselves but part of a 16-track entirety that is head-spinning. If that’s techno for metalheads, so be it. Horns up for dat bass.

Thief on Facebook

Prophecy Productions website

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Rise to the Sky, Per Aspera Ad Astra

The album’s title is kind of another interpretation of the band’s name, the idea behind the Latin phrase Per Aspera Ad Astra being moving through challenges to the stars and the Santiago, Chile, one-man death-doom outfit being Rise to the Sky. Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Sergio González Catalán reportedly wrote and arranged the title-track in the days following his father’s funeral, and the grand, flowing string sounds and engrossing heft that ensues feel genuinely mournful, capping with a progression of solo piano before “End My Night” seems to pick up where “The Loss of Hope” left off. The lyrics to closer “Only Our Past Remains” derive from a poem by Catalán‘s father, and the sense of tribute is palpable across the album’s 46 minutes. I’m not sure how the Russian folk melody bonus instrumental “Horse” might tie in, but neither is it out of place among “Deep Lament” and “Bleeding Heart,” the latter of which dares some clean vocals alongside the gutturalism, and in context, the rest of the album seems to answer with loss what opener “Life in Suspense” is waiting for.

Rise to the Sky on Facebook

GS Productions website

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Birth, Demo

Those familiar with Brian Ellis and Conor Riley‘s work in Astra should not be surprised to find them exploring ’70s-style progressive rock in Birth, and anybody who heard Psicomagia already knows that bassist Trevor Mast and drummer Paul Marrone (also Radio Moscow) are a rhythm section well up to whatever task you might want to set before them. Thus Birth‘s Demo arrives some four years after its recording, with “Descending Us” (posted here) leading off in dramatic Deep Purple-y fashion backed by the jammier but gloriously mellotroned and Rhodes’ed “Cosmic Wind” and “Long Way Down,” which digs itself into a righteous King Crimson payoff with due class even as it revels in its rough edges. Marrone‘s since left the band and whoever replaces him has big shoes to fill, but god damn, just put out a record already, would you?

Birth on Facebook

Bad Omen Records website

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Old Horn Tooth, True Death

Wielding mighty tonality and meeting Monolordian lurch with an aural space wide enough to contain it, Old Horn Tooth follow their 2019 debut LP, From the Ghost Grey Depths, with the single-song EP True Death, proffering a largesse rarely heard even from London’s ultra-populated heavy underground and working their way into, out of, back into, out of and through a nod that the converted among riff-heads likely find irresistible and hypnotic in kind. To say the trio of guitarist/vocalist Chris, bassist/keyboardist Ollie and drummer Mark ride out the groove is perhaps underselling it, but as my first exposure to the band, I’m only sorry to have missed out on both the orange tapes and the limited flash drives they were selling. So it goes. Slow riffs, fast sales. I’ll catch them next time and drown my sorrows in the interim in this immersive, probably-gonna-get-picked-up-by-some-label-for-a-vinyl-release offering. And hey, maybe if you and I both email them, they’ll press a few more cassettes.

Old Horn Tooth on Facebook

Old Horn Tooth on Bandcamp

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Solemn Lament, Solemn Lament

Pro-shop-level doom from an initial public offering by Solemn Lament, bringing together the significant likes of vocalist Phil Swanson (ex-Hour of 13, Vestal Claret, countless others), drummer Justin DeTore (Magic Circle and more recently Dream Unending) as well as Blind Dead‘s Drew Wardlaw on bass and Adam Jacino on lead guitar, and Eric Wenstrom on rhythm guitar. These personages cross coastlines to three tracks and intro of grand and immersive doom metal, willfully diving into the Peaceville-three legacy on “Stricken” to find the beauty in darkness after the lumber and chug of the nine-minute “Celeste” resolves with patient grace and “Old Crow” furthers the Paradise Lost spirit in its central riff. Geography is an obvious challenge, but if Solemn Lament can build on the potential they show in this debut EP, they could be onto something really special.

Solemn Lament on Facebook

Solemn Lament on Bandcamp

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Terminus, The Silent Bell Toll

A stunning third full-length from Fayetteville, Arkansas, trio Terminus, The Silent Bell Toll bridges doomed heft and roll, progressive melodicism and thoughtful heavy rock construction into a potent combination of hooks and sheer impact. It’s worth noting that the 10-minute closer of the nine-song/40-minute outing, “Oh Madrigal,” soars vocally, but hell, so does the 3:18 “Black Swan” earlier. Guitarist Sebastian Thomas (also cover art) and bassist Julian Thomas share vocal duties gorgeously throughout while drummer Scott Wood rolls songs like “The Lion’s Den” and “The Silent Bell Toll” — that nod under the solo; goodness gracious — in such a way as to highlight the epic feel even as the structure beneath is reinforced. With three instrumentals peppered throughout to break up the chapters as intro, centerpiece and penultimate, there’s all the more evidence that Terminus are considered in their approach and that the level of realization across The Silent Bell Toll is not happenstance.

Terminus on Facebook

Terminus on Bandcamp

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Lunar Ark, Recurring Nightmare

Clearly named in honor of its defining intent, Recurring Nightmare is the three-song/48-minute debut full-length from Boston-based charred sludge outfit, who take the noisy heft of ultra-disaffected purveyors like Indian or Primitive Man and push it into a blackened metallic sphere further distinguished by harshly ambient drones. One can dig Neurosis-style riffing out of the 19:30 closer “Guillotine” or opener “Torch and Spear,” but the question is how much one’s hand is going to be sliced open in that process. And the answer is plenty. Their tones don’t so much rumble as crumble, vocals are willfully indecipherable throat-clenching screams, and the drums duly glacial. There is little kindness to be had in 16:43 centerpiece “Freedom Fever Dream” — originally broken into two parts as a demo in 2019 — which resolves itself lyrically in mourning a lost ideal over a dense lurch that’s met with still-atmospheric churning. Their established goal, if that’s what it is, has been met with all appropriate viciousness and extremity.

Lunar Ark on Facebook

Trepanation Recordings on Bandcamp

Lunar Seas Records on Bandcamp

Realm and Ritual on Bandcamp

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Taxi Caveman, Taxi Caveman

An ethic toward straight-ahead riff rock is writ large throughout Taxi Caveman‘s self-titled debut full-length, the Warsaw trio offering a face-first dive into fuzz of varying sizes and shaping their material around the sleek groove of “Prisoner” or the more aggressively bent vinyl-side-launchers “Building With Fire” and “Asteroid.” There’s a highlight hook in “I, the Witch” and the instrumental “426” leads into the Dozer-esque initial verse of 10-minute closer “Empire of the Sun,” but the three-piece find their own way through ultimately, loosening some of the verse/chorus reins in order to affect more of a jammed feel. It’s a departure from the crunch of “Asteroid” or “Prisoner” and the big, big, big sound that starts “Building With Fire,” but I’m certainly not about to hold some nascent sonic diversity against them. They’re playing to genre across these 33 minutes, but they do so without pretense and with a mind toward kicking as much ass as possible. Not changing the world, but it’s not trying to and it’s fun enough in listening that it doesn’t need to.

Taxi Caveman on Facebook

Piranha Music on Bandcamp

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Droneroom, Negative Libra

“Negative Libra” runs 36:36 and is the lone track on the album that bears its name from Las Vegas-based solo-project Droneroom. The flowing work of Blake Conley develops in slow, meditative form and gradually introduces lap steel to shimmer along with its post-landscape etherealities, evocative of cinema as they are without exactly playing to one or the other film-genre tropes. That is to say, Conley isn’t strictly horror soundtracking or Western soundtracking, and so on. Perhaps in part because of that, “Negative Libra” is allowed to discover its path and flourish as it goes — I’m not sure as to the layering process of making it vis-à-vis what was tracked live and put on top after — but the sense of exploration-of-moment that comes through is palpable and serene even as the guitar comes forward just before hitting the 27-minute mark to begin the transition into the song’s noisier payoff and final, concluding hum.

Droneroom on Facebook

Somewherecold Records website

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Aiwass, Wayward Gods

Blown-out vocals add an otherworldly tinge to Arizona-based one-man-band Aiwass‘ debut full-length, Wayward Gods, giving the already gargantuan tones a sense of space to match. Opener “Titan” and closer “Mythos” seem to push even further in this regard than, say, the centerpiece “Man as God” — the last track feeling particularly Monolordly in its lumbering — but by the time “Titan” and the subsequent, 10-minute inclusion “From Chains,” which ends cold with a guest solo by Vinny Tauber of Ohio’s Taubnernaut and shifts into the cawing blackbird at the outset of “Man as God” with a purposefully jarring intent. Despite the cringe-ready cartoon-boobs cover art, the newcomer project finds a heavy niche that subverts expectation as much as it meets it and sets broad ground to explore on future outings. As an idea, “gonna start a heavy, huge-sounding band during the pandemic,” is pretty straightforward. What results from that in Aiwass runs deeper.

Aiwass on Facebook

Aiwass on Bandcamp

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I try really hard not to make these shows suck. I do. And I think I’m mostly successful in that endeavor, but I tried extra hard this time. With my voice tracks as well as the playlist, which is almost entirely new music apart from the Orange Goblin and Mars Red Sky songs. I wanted to put a little life in my voice and I hope I managed to do so. I know last ep was a special consideration, with the death of Eric Wagner and all, but I’m not trying to be the most softspoken guy on Gimme Metal or anything. I just want to play music that isn’t necessarily aggro all the time. I’m actually pretty excited generally about doing so.

Tried to show that a little bit more. Nobody said anything to me about it or anything. I highly doubt anyone gives a crap. As long as I’m not doing like three-song shows with no voiceovers, Gimme seems content enough to let me do me. But just for myself, I wanted to hopefully convey a little bit of how much I enjoy talking about and sharing music. That’s the point of the whole thing.

Thanks for listening if you do and/or reading. I hope you enjoy.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 09.17.21

Crystal Spiders	Septix	Morieris
Canyyn	Crush Your Bones	Canyyn
Orange Goblin	Cities of Frost	Healing Through Fire
VT
Sonolith	Star Worshipers	Voidscapes
ASTRO CONstruct	Hand Against the Solar Winds	Tales of Cosmic Journeys
Slowshine	Living Light	Living Light
EMBR	Born	1021
Vokonis	Null & Void	Null & Void
VT
Floored Faces	Shoot the Ground	Kool Hangs
Carcaňo	Riding Space Elephants	By Order of the Green Goddess
Malady	Dyadi	Ainavihantaa
River Flows Reverse	Final Run	When River Flows Reverse
Gondhawa	Raba Dishka	Käampâla
Mars Red Sky	Crazy Hearth	The Task Eternal
Terminus	The Falcon	The Silent Bell Toll
Djiin	Black Circus	Meandering Soul
VT
Negură Bunget	Brad	Zau

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Oct. 1 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

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By no means has Jesu been dormant, it’s just been seven years since the last time there was an album out. 2013’s Every Day I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came occurred even as project founder, spearhead and sometimes-sole-member Justin K. Broadrick had already begun to revive and push forward with his other band, Godflesh. That wildly influential UK act would release a live album recorded at Roadburn playing the groundbreaking 1989 Streetcleaner LP in its entirety, the 2014 Decline and Fall EP (review here), and two full-lengths, 2014’s A World Lit Only by Fire (review here) and 2017’s Post-Self (review here), as well as sundry other short offerings/one-offs, in the intervening years. As Godflesh ascended to priority, the two-piece also played numerous festivals around the world — they’d eventually do 1991’s Pure in full as well — and thereby further cement their legacy with a new generation of fans.

But again, Jesu — also stylized all-lowercase: jesu, and pronounced “yay-zoo” — weren’t entirely gone. There were collaborations with Dirk Serries and Sun Kill Moon in 2016 and 2017, and a redux collaboration based on the track “Christmas” with Yang Li in 2018. An EP, Never, landed in July 2020, and the awaited full-length return of Jesu comes in the somewhat forebodingly titled Terminus, an eight-track/51-minute outing that speaks of endings and beginnings, delves into personal introspection, and ultimately finds its place emotionally and sonically drifting, floating away atop a gentle sea of heavy post-rock. Terminus brings its share of lumbering riffs in its opener “When I Was Small” and its title-track, “Sleeping In” and the later “Disintegrating Wings,” and a churning rhythm is nothing less than a sonic signature for Broadrick. But on a creative level, he’s no more held to that here than he is the barking shouts and harsh beats one might find on a Godflesh release. Jesu is simply and has (mostly) been since its 2004 Heart Ache EP and self-titled full-length a different incarnation of Broadrick‘s creative process — and it should be noted that neither is that process so delineated in terms of two manifestations. See also: JKFlesh, production and remixing work done under his own name, and various others through the years, Final, Techno Animal, and so on.

And given that is has been more than half a decade since the prior LP, Terminus‘ arrival comes with due welcome. Tracked mostly by Broadrick himself on guitar, synth, vocals and who-kn0ws-what-else with Ted Parsons on drums for “When I Was Small,” “Terminus” and “Don’t Wake Me Up,” its general atmosphere is familiar ground for Jesu in emotive explorations of past and present, lyrics looking to moments of regret, wistfulness and sometimes self-critique. At one point in “Alone,” Broadrick asks, “Am I your sight?/Or just a slight?,” even as “Disintegrating Wings” seems to make a more outward-looking assessment, “Lies are your truth/Truth is your lies,” that, as with any discussion of too-fragile objective veracity, is easy enough to place within the sphere of modern social discourse. Whether that’s Broadrick‘s intent or not, I don’t know — I’d be glad to ask; it’s been nearly a decade since I last interviewed him — as the lyrics are purposefully impressionistic in keeping with the vague outlines of the cover art and indeed the blurring between styles in the music itself, evoking the same questions the title-cut engages as to where an ending ends and a beginning begins. Maybe we’re not supposed to know, and indeed the album does close with the hypnotic instrumental “Give Up,” shoving off on a steadily fading beat that seems consumed by a wash of looped guitar and synthesized melody.

That sort of wandering course, a build up perhaps from an initial experiment or melody that pans out in a direction as it goes, is a crucial foundation for Jesu‘s work, and that holds even in “When I Was Small,” which is arguably the most straightforward of inclusions here. It’s all the more fitting, then, that the leadoff track comes immediately accompanied by “Alone,” the shortest piece at 4:19 and a near-immediate surge of melodicism and hook-making that in other hands would simply be summer-ready pop, but here has a metal-on-metal clang of a beat keeping time to Broadrick‘s dreamy vocals and winding synth. Lyrics toy with rhymes — “well, tell, hell” and “bright, light, sight, slight” in the two verses — and though clearly the song is intended to engage with pop and Britpop in particular, there is an element of twist in terms of aesthetic and it holds to the depth of mix that the opener established.

“Terminus” (9:30) and “Sleeping In” (8:39) feel paired for immersion. Once Terminus has gotten its throw-you-for-a-loop first 10 minutes out of the way in “When I Was Small” and “Alone,” it digs into its own atmospheric heart in the title-track, not departing entirely from the weight of “When I Was Small” or even the shimmer of “Alone,” but using both as elements in its own linear structure, capping with a gentle letting go and stretch of silence ahead of “Sleeping In,” which unfolds gradually, beautifully and with a patience that shifts smoothly into the cinematic post-rock of “Consciousness” with a masterful touch. That sets up the final stretch of Terminus in the relatively subdued, minimal-feeling-but-not-actually-minimal “Disintegrating Wings,” and the leaving-here last pair of “Don’t Wake Me Up” and “Give Up,” the former of which dedicates its second half to a brighter-sounding freedom, and the latter which is all the more ethereal for its lack of component verses even as it holds its beat for much of the duration.

Put together in a period between 2016 and this year, Jesu released Terminus last week. I didn’t know it was coming, but I bought it and wanted to write about it and somehow this seemed like the appropriate way to do that. I don’t know what if anything it foretells about a direction for Broadrick — if Terminus is his way of putting Godflesh to rest for the time being and shifting back toward Jesu as a primary outlet — or if that’s something that really could be known at this point, if it matters one way or the other.

What matters, of course, is the music. As always, I hope you enjoy that.

Thanks for reading.

—

Yesterday I was feeling in need of an outside reminder of why I do this. I was busy chasing down The Pecan, who for the last several weeks since it started to get colder and we haven’t been outside as much, has been furiously butting heads and increasingly rigid in his demands for things to be a certain way, and I saw some email or message whatever it was come in nagging about some low-stakes shit and I very nearly texted a friend and asked what the fuck I need this for in my life at this point. I didn’t, mind you, but the fact that I even came close to doing so is out of character for me.

I’m not fishing for compliments. I’m not. I get notes from people who say thanks for doing this and that means a tremendous amount. It was just kind of a rut week, watching COVID-19 case levels rise, putting the house back on lockdown as we have, kid not napping in the afternoon anymore, my fucking body, etc. On Wednesday I took a whole xanax and fell asleep watching Daniel Tiger on the couch with The Patient Mrs. and The Pecan before the latter went to bed. Actually got some decent snuggles. It was probably the highlight of my week. That and the Grayceon record, anyhow.

Did you listen to that fucking song? Why the fuck not?

I don’t know what’s going on today. I was gonna take The Pecan and do a pre-weekend grocery run to Shop-Rite, which is apparently the only store on the planet that has the right granola bars — Amy’s Organics Oatmeal Raisin, in the red box — but I don’t know about dealing with other humans, especially as it’ll be circa lunchtime when The Pecan’s bus drops him off, and that place fills up because of prepared foods, etc. There’s really no right answer at this point for leaving the house, except maybe 7 in the morning or 9 at night and I’m hopefully asleep by then.

Ah hell, kid just got up. I can hear him thumping around upstairs and he ran in his closet, which means dirty diaper coming soon into my future. Better punch out here.

Great and safe weekend. I’m gonna try and take a few minutes tomorrow to get my head together. We’ll see how it goes. Hydrate, wear a mask and all that. Much love.

FRM.

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If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “But wait a second… Didn’t Snail already make a video for the song ‘Ritual’ from their most excellent 2012 album, Terminus, and didn’t The Obelisk premiere it?” Well, okay, maybe you weren’t thinking in those exact terms, or thinking that at all, but either way the answer is the same: Kinda.

Back before Terminus was released, I put up an interview with guitarist/vocalist Mark Johnson and bassist Matt Lynch about the making of the album, and indeed, there was a video premiere along with that Q&A, and indeed, that video was for the song “Ritual.” The difference is that this new clip wasn’t made by the band and it’s an original project by an outsider rather than compiled with found footage by the band themselves. I liked the other video, but you know, I like this one too, and they’re both (mostly) black and white, so there’s even a bit of continuity between them.

Actually, to be perfectly honest, my first thought when I was watching the “Ritual” clip below directed by Maxime Weber was  to wonder if the office park that appears at around the two-minute mark and again later in some of the color section wasn’t the same one that was used for filming Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, but no, it turns out it was all filmed in Luxembourg, and I’m a jerk. Glad I got that one settled.

Enjoy “Ritual,” and if you’ve enjoyed it before, take it as a cue to break out Terminus for another listen. I did: