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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