To kick off another year of awesome music, we picked up a grab bag of 30 CDs from Hydra Head Records. We’re going to snag one at random each weekend, give it a spin, and then keep track of it here, along with notes about whatever else is tickling our musical fancy that week. It’s a sort of Project365 for Your Earholes!
Week 1: “Conquerer” by Jesu
I sort of cheated with this week, because I didn’t pull this at random. Before committing to buying the grab bag, I checked out a few HHR bands, and Jesu sounded amazing. I was very eagerly anticipating this one, and had high expectations for some mind-blowing complex post-metal weirdness. OK, first lesson of Project Hydra Head for Your Earholes: don’t have any expectations. This album was much more straight-forward and listenable than I imagined; it wasn’t the least bit weird or challenging. That wasn’t really disappointing per se, but the vocals definitely threw me for a loop. They were like something out of some “indie” band — inoffensive and airy. I can see the track “Conqueror” being a staple on Spring playlists for years to come, but my initial reaction is that I’d like this a lot more with different vocals.
— Pookie
Also tingling the ol’ earholes this week:
Creature with the Atom Brain – it’s like what Queens of the Stone Age should sound like
Big Business – after wallowing in a lot of Mark Lanegan in December, it was hard rock week at Maple Hoo! Hands up, indeed.
John Zorn’s “The Concealed” – it’s like a slightly more serious Dreamers
IPB Living 
yay! a new project!! i’m really looking forward to following along with this. conqueror is a bit strange, just bc like you said, the vocals sound like they’d fit better with one of those low key super chill indie bands, rather than the solid guitar solos.
I’m super-weirded out by the Jesu vocals, because I’ve literally never heard a single bad word about Jesu from the metal fans I encounter on the interwebs. But when we fired up this CD… it was not really melting my face off. I mean, I’m a fan of gentle, dreamy, soundscape music just as much (if not more) than hard rock, but I was really expecting something a lot heavier based on how beloved this band is. I think if there were no vocals at all, I’d have liked this album a lot more. They just seemed completely out of balance. (That said, my overall feeling is far closer to “like” than “dislike” for it.)
I don’t remember the other Jesu songs I sampled having vocals like this album, so maybe they changed as time went on? We’ll find out because — spoiler alert! — there’s another Jesu album in the grab bag. :D
Cześć,
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