I’m an irresponsible jerk who is way behind on my RSS reading, so I didn’t get to The Deciblog’s new interview with one mister Justin Broadrick until today. And fuck me naked with a spoon, because if I had gotten to it sooner, I would have been aware of this part of the chat:

Have you been writing for Godflesh?
JB: Really, really slowly. I guess because I’ve had my son, it’s slowed things down a bit for us. I mean, Ben Green got married last year and he still holds a very good job, so he’s very busy, we’re both very busy but we have a lot of ideas. Also, there’s no way we’d approach a new record just to milk the new-found popularity of Godflesh. I mean, it could take another year before we release something, and even the intitial impact of the reformation could have subsided by then, but that’s kind of meaningless, really, it’s just making another really good, cold and bleak record. And it’s more than in us, it’s in me, it still translates the same emotions that I’ve been struggling with all my life.

And news of new Godflesh is simultaneously profoundly excellent and profoundly anxiety-inducing.

Click to read more…

Whether you’re a pesto shrimp kinda gal or a spicy sausage man, hopefully one thing the two sexes can agree upon is that Justin Broadrick’s Jesu project is fucking beautiful. It rocks, it’s haunting, super earnest…..the perfect soundtrack for a late-night getting-to-know-you lovefest.

-KW

Because I’m guessing — and I know I’m going way, way out on a limb here — that the song is sadder than watching child burn victims watch a puppy get run over. Just a guess. It’s not based on anything, really, other than every other Jesu song ever.

But I’m sure the song, “Small Wonder,” is terrific. I mean, I do love Jesu. I just had a nice weekend and I’m not in the mood to spoil it with, like, a black hole of depression in audio form right now.

So listen here, and if I’m wrong and Justin Broadrick has actually written a song about a kittie frolicking with the Swedish Bikini Team in a field of sunflowers, then, please, by all means, let me know, and I’ll check out the track immediately. Otherwise, I think it has to wait until I’m back to being grumpy. I’m gonna work on my taxes later this afternoon, so that should shit all over my day nice n’ proper.

Jesu’ latest, Ascension, comes out May 10 on Caldo Verde.

-AR

How can something so melancholy make me so happy? Jesu’s music can be depressing as fuck to listen to (WHY ARE YOU SAD, JUSTIN BROADRICK?!?!), but I love it so frickin’ much. Like, this morning, I awoke to find an e-mail from reader Ashley Lee telling me that there’s a new Jesu album coming out and a new song streaming, and I was like, “YES!”, even though I knew the song wasn’t gonna be about, y’know, puppies and kittens and rainbows and hugging.

And, sure enough, that new track, “Birth Day,” is making me… feel things. That’s not unusual for a Jesu song, but, still, it has to be some kind of miracle that Broadrick can consistently thaw out the cold, dead, black lump where my heart should be. I mean, yesterday I saw a video of a baby panda cuddling with a three-year-old terminal cancer patient to a soundtrack of “Somewhere” from West Side Story, and my reaction was “What’s for lunch?” But Justin Broadrick mopes a few notes into a microphone and I turn into a menopausal woman watching Terms of Endearment. Amazing.

Get all weepy n’ shit here, then come back and let us know what you think. “Birth Day” will be on Jesu’s Ascension, which comes out May 10 on Calo Verde. And it has TEN SONGS ON IT, which, by Jesu standards, is, like, the longest thing ever… or at least since 2007′s Conqueror.

-AR

Stephen Kasner, the extremely gifted artist who has done work for, amongst others, Justin Broadrick, Isis, Sunn O))), and integrity, has fallen on hard times, and needs your help. He’s apparently a very private guy, so the particulars of his medical condition are not being publicly disclosed, but he has released the following statement, which our friend Rich Hall brought to our attention via Invisible Oranges:

“Stephen Kasner has recently been diagnosed with some serious medical issues. Like many artists who lack the benefit of medical insurance, he pushed the situation aside until it became unavoidable. Emergency care has been initiated, but he is not out of the woods yet, and his continued care is extremely necessary – hence this call for aid to friends, admirers of his art, and comrades alike.”

Now here’s how you can help:

• You can make a PayPal donation to kasner@stephenkasner.com. If you take a screenshot of your donation and e-mail to Invisible Oranges’ Cosmo Lee at invisibleoranges at gmail dot com, Cosmo will enter you in a drawing to win a hardcover edition of Kasner’s book Works: 1993 — 2006, which you can also check out here.
• You can purchase some Kasner’s work — Lee says that Kasner “has two stores, a main one and one for his Blood Fountains musical project.”  So there are albums and album art and posters and silk screens and books… you get the idea.

Obviously this is a very worthy cause… we’re sending out good thoughts to Kasner, his friends, and his family, and strongly encourage you to donate today, if it’s just a few bucks.

-AR

Hanukkah starts tomorrow!!! I can’t believe it’s time for dreidels and latkes again already. I got Vince a present. It’s socks. Shhh, don’t spoil the surprise.

To celebrate the Festival of Lights, we’re gonna be on the Metal Injection Livecast! Both of us! At once! Again! You’ll be able to listen to us talk about, like, metal n’ stuff. And I hear we may be lighting a menorah live on the air, despite the fact that it will be roughly three hours after sundown. You can even call in! We like the callers. Especially the heavy breathers. Purrrrrrrr.

So listen here. The show starts at 8pm Eastern Standard Time.

And as if that weren’t exciting enough, Justin Broadrick is going to be doing a THREE HOUR INTERVIEW with WFMU today from noon to 3pm EST. Holy shit, that’s awesome. If you live in the New York metropolitan area and wanna listen on your radio, the station is 91.1 FM. But don’t be sad if you don’t live in the New York metropolitan area and/or only listen to the radio on the interwebs nowadays, ’cause the interview will be live on those very same interwebs, too. Go here to listen.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go gargle with honey and then go on vocal rest to be properly prepared for our Metal Injection Livecast tomorrow evening.

-AR

So last week Rob from Metal Injection stopped by the MetalSucks Mansion for a hang sesh, and as we were sitting around, shaving years off of our lives (and that was the first night in a long time when I seriously thought I might die), we decided we needed to listen to something a little on the mellower side. So I threw on some Jesu.

Now, I fucking love Jesu, but as I was sitting there listening to the song “Silver” (sample of the upbeat lyrics: “I don’t understand the pain” and “Silver’s just another gold/When you’re bitter and you’re old”), I started thinking: Why is Justin Broadrick so sad? The guy has been a professional musician since he was like fifteen or something. He co-founded Napalm Death. He co-founded Godflesh. He’s universally acknowledged as a major talent. Apparently he smokes massive amounts of weed. I know he’s not like a rich dude or anything, but still, he’s got it pretty good. And so before you knew it, Rob and I adopted the Mr. Plinkett voice and started saying, over and over again, “WHY ARE YOU SO SAD, JUSTIN BROADRICK???”

I mention all of this because Jesu’s first EP, 2004′s Heart Ache (which never got an official release in the U.S.), has now been combined with another Jesu EP, Dethroned, which Broadrick also started working on in 2004 but only recently completed. And there’s a track from Dethroned, entitled “Annul,” streaming over at Stereogum. And even though the music is way heavier than most recent Jesu, it still seems kinda glum. I’m not complaining, or criticizing; I love Jesu, and I think “Annul” is great. I guess I’m just saying, I’d like to give Justin Broadrick a hug.

Go listen to “Annul,” and then come back here and tell us if you’d like to help Justin cheer up, too. Heart Ache and Dethroned will come out November 16 on Hydra Head, and can now be pre-ordered here.

-AR

I could’ve sworn I saw posters online claiming that Godflesh’s reunion gig at France’s Hellfest last week would be their only European show for the summer, or maybe even just their only show for the year, but now I can’t find those posters and the band has already announced a second show, at this October’s Supersonic Festival in Birmingham.

Not that I’m complaining. I’d love for this to turn into a full-blown reunion, complete with, oh, I dunno, maybe some gigs here in the States? Justin? Benny? Whadda ya say? We’ll show you a good time, I promise!

While we wait with baited breath, here’s footage of “Crush My Soul” from Hellfest. Band still sounds good to me!

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

Reader Jon Leone just pointed us towards this post on the blog of the legendary Justin Broadrick, announcing yet another project in the works – this one called Pale Sketcher. Broadrick writes:

“Pale Sketcher is intended as a vehicle for me to explore, exclusively and in more detail, the ‘electronica’ side of jesu [sic].

“It occurred to me during the writing of the last Jesu EP ‘Opiate Sun’ in early 2009, that Jesu, first and foremost, was intended to be a guitar oriented project. The ‘electronica’ side of Jesu was just an inevitable direction for me, but never satisfied with this battle between guitars and electronica with Jesu, I decided to separate the two directions – Jesu, now, and for the forseeable future, being guitar based exclusively, with Pale Sketcher being the project where I can focus and develop further, the Jesu ‘electronica’ sound, without need for further fusion or compromise.”

Broadrick says that the project’s first release will be “the entire out of print Jesu release ‘Pale Sketches’ demixed by Pale Sketcher,” as well as some additional remixes by King Midas Sound and Tower Of Light (not that I have any idea who either of those people/groups/whatever are). It’ll be out July of this year on Ghostly International. You can hear a sample of a Pale Sketcher “demix,” entitled “Plans That Fade (Faded Dub),” here. It sounds pretty cool, though (obviously) not at all metal.

Meanwhile, Broadrick ends the post by saying he hopes to record a new Jesu LP in August, to see eventual release through Caldo Verde. I’ve heard very little of Broadrick’s work that I didn’t think was capital-”B” Brilliant, so I’m stoked to get as much new music from the guy as possible.

-AR

Holy shit. I wasn’t even out that late last night, but for some reason I am just so tired today that it feels like nothing is really happening. Am I really typing this? Did I really write something positive about Zakk Wylde? Can I please just go to sleep now? I’m just gonna go to sleep now.

Before I do, here’s some things that happened this week:

• We’re giving away a free download of Katatonia’s new song, “Forsaker.”
• We spoke to Hypocrisy’s Peter Tagtgren and Brian Cook from Russian Circles and These Arms Are Snakes.
• We checked out new releases from Slayer and Jesu.
• Otep Shamaya gives women in metal a good name – too bad she won’t be a woman much longer.
• Leaves’ Eyes singer Liv Kristine gives women in metal a bad name – or, at least, a silly one.

Alright, seriously, night-night time for Axl. I think Gary Suarez is going to the NYC Vader gig tomorrow; if anyone sees him there, give him a dead arm for me.

-AR

Former Godflesh/current Jesu mastermind Justin Broadrick has a Twitter account. Now while this could be troublesome/groanworthy news for some characters prone to oversharing (though certainly not in Metal Sucks’ case), for Broadrick, it seems fitting, given his prolific approach to music. His output is measured in months, not years, as is the case with most bands. To look at Jesu in its own timeline yields a recent string of iffy releases, like the band’s extremely boring split with Eluvium (repackaged as the Why We Are Not Perfect EP), and two so-so contributions to splits with Envy and Battle of Mice (though so-so in the most literal sense of the phrase, in that each split contained one song that was meandering and seemingly pointless, and one that stood among the best Broadrick has done under the Jesu moniker). However, to look at it in a regular spectrum, that was only 2008; one only needs to reach back to 2007 to find the magnificent full length Conqueror, still in the typical two year gap most artists have between records.

But in JB Time, this is an eternity. One may wonder if the man had knocked himself off kilter, that if Jesu’s best days were behind them. But with Justin Broadrick’s work with beard metal supergroup Greymachine and two releases with Jesu this year, he proves that at the very least has more interesting things to say, if not still capable of putting out the band’s best material in the future. Don’t call it a comeback, because, well, it isn’t. But when those slow, chunky chords first make their appearance on the Infinity full length or that Cure-on-a-7-string beauty rears its head on “Deflated” (off the Opiate Sun EP), it’s immediately clear that the Jesu magic is still there, and that while Justin is prone to get lost in the wilderness, he’s usually on his way back, often times a few months later.

Click to read more…

I first wrote about Greymachine last September, when I foolishly thought the band was called Grey Machine; then Gary Suarez wrote about them again back in May. There wasn’t a lot of actual news to report, though; the supergroup – which includes amongst it ranks Justin Broadrick, Isis’ Aaron Turner, Diarmuid Dalton of Godflesh and Jesu and Dave Cochrane of Head of David – had a free single avail for download or purchase on vinyl, but no release date for their full-length.

Well, now they have a release date. August 4 on Hydra Head. Mark it in your calendars.

That free single, “Vultures Descend,” is trippy as fuck, and if the thought of a Broadrick/Turner team-up doesn’t make your dick hard, you must need viagra. Or, y’know, be a lady.

Here’s “Vultures Descend.” We’ll give you more news on the album as we get it.

Grey Machine, “Vultures Descend” – from Disconnected (out August 4 on Hydra Head) [Download]

-AR

UPDATE: Pitchfuck now says this ain’t happenin’. Oh well. Thanks to Scott Casey for the heads up.

I imagine that there’s a certain percentage of the population that will never read any of Alan Moore’s work – including the graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (but NOT the horrible movies they were turned into, all of which he has disowned) – because they assume that comics are, by their definition, for children and/or the emotionally stunted. And that’s too bad, ’cause Moore is a bona fide fucking GENIUS. The guy’s writing is just incredible. Plus, his ginormous beard is metal as fuck.

Now Moore is working on a semi-autobiographical multimedia project – a “photographic novel”  which will include a score with contributions from both Mike Patton and Justin Broadrick. The project is expected to be released in 2010 via Lex Records.

All I can say is: holy shit. A collaboration between any two of these artists would be more than enough to get my money. I can’t wait to see/hear what they’ve come up with.

-AR

[Thanks, Metal Insider!]

I know we have more than a few vinyl purists reading this column, so you’ll likely be interested to know that the Aaron Turner / Justin Broadrick collaboration Grey Machine (which we first told you about back in September) just released a 12″ single for “Vultures Descend” via beardo metal specialists Hydra Head Records.

Click to read more…

Cosmo Lee over at Invisible Oranges is on a Justin K. Broadrick kick this week. Lee says he doesn’t especially care for Broadrick’s more recent output, even if he loves the Broadrick of yore; I couldn’t disagree more, but, hey, I understand that Jesu ain’t for everyone.

In all honestly, Broadrick has been kind of untouchable in my mind. I’ve never heard him do anything I didn’t think was awesome – at least, not until now.

Click to read more…

Does Justin Broadrick ever fucking sleep? It would be impressive enough that the guy puts out more music in a single year than most artists do in a five, but even more incredible is that pretty much all of it is awesome. It must just be in the dude’s DNA to make great music.

Broadrick’s latest project is Grey Machine, a collaboration with Isis’ Aaron Turner (Jesu’s Dave Chochrane and Diarmuid Dalton also contribute.). For anyone who misses the days when Broadrick’s music used to be on the heavier side of the spectrum (as opposed to the soothing, repetitive aural waves of Jesu), this is the perfect music for you: it’s obviously not Napalm Death, but it’s definitely more in the vein of Streetcleaner-era Godflesh. Which is not to say it sounds JUST like Godflesh – but that might give you some idea of the direction the group seems to be heading in.

The band has made a free mp3 of their song “Vultures Descend,” off their forthcoming album Disconnected, available for free download. Check it out below.

Grey Machine, “Vultures Descend” – from Disconnected (release date TBA)

Thanks to MetalSucks Maniac Alex for the tip!

-AR

A few weeks ago I wrote a post imploring everyone to go out and buy Jesu’s new EP, Why Are We Not Perfect? – without realizing that the release date had been moved from August 19 to today, September 9. Whoops.

So, really, seriously, truly – the album is out today, and you should buy it. It’s currently streaming in its entirety right here, so if there’s any doubt in your mind about Justin K. Broadrick’s awesomeness (and really, there shouldn’t be any doubt), you can experience the shoegazey goodness for yourself.

-AR

Perhaps the only metal video (or any music video?) ever to be made about cock-fighting, Godflesh’s “Crush My Soul” just seems to fit so well with this shunned past-time. Conceptually and lyrically, you’re asking the wrong dude about the connection. Is Justin Broadrick insinuating that chickens’ souls are crushed? Does his soul feel crushed by a chicken? Does cock-fighting crush his soul? Does he just LOVE cock-fighting?

We may never know.

-VN

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/EkIYr8bXf-I" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Okay, so let’s just get the negative out of the way: I’m not crazy about “Decay,” the opening track from this eagerly anticipated collaboration between the seemingly tireless Justin Broadrick and former Swans vocalist Jarboe. It has a little too much of that kind of Bloody Panda-ish vibe, the one that makes you feel like you’re listening to the longest intro ever when you just want the friggin’ song to start already.

The rest of this album, luckily, is as fucking brilliant as the light bulb that adorns its cover art.

Click to read more…

This is old news by now, but it’s still worth mentioning just for the players involved: former Naplam Death/Godflesh/current Jesu mastermind Justin Broadrick has put together a new project with former Swans vocalist/keyboardist Jarboe, cleverly titled J2 (get it?). It’s not exactly metal – in fact, I think it’s safe to call it electronica – but, hey, it’s Justin Broadrick and Jarboe, so it’s worth your attention.

The first track by the band, “8mmsweetbitter,” can be heard on The End Records’ MySpace page; The End will release the full album on March 18.

-AR