AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: JESUSEGG — “JESUSEGG”

 

If you have any sense of irony at all, you would have a hard time thinking of a better date than Christmas Day for a band named Jesusegg to release an album named Jesusegg via a label named Seeing Red Records, especially when that album has not one fucking thing to do with peace on earth or good will to men (or women). You’ll see (or rather, hear), because if you scroll down in this post you’ll be able to listen to a full stream of the album.

Jesusegg come from Cleveland, a town I think of as one of America’s premier spawning grounds for extreme music that embodies politically charged rage and does so in ways that have lasting power. While hardcore may be the Cleveland genre that comes to my mind first, Jesusegg are split-personality grindcore militants who take their cues from the likes of Human Remains, Discordance Axis, Nasum, Rotten Sound, and Anal Cunt.

This new album collects recordings that span the band’s history from 2003 – 2007, most of which are previously unreleased. It’s intended as a laying of groundwork for new material that’s projected for discharge by the same label before next year ends.

 

 

Don’t bother googling this band. You won’t find much; what you might find, if it came before this year, probably declared them dead. Or, with enough diligence, you might find a PureVolume page which proclaims that the band combine death metal, grind, ska, and jazz.

There’s some truth to that. Listening to this album in a straight run-through is like a combination of roller-coaster and bumper-car rides at the state fair, except more likely to result in head trauma. It’s a battering, blistering, deranged, discordant, unpredictable trip, flooded with vocals that are howling, roaring, shrieking, and rarely resembling human expressions. With few tracks that exceed one minute in length, there’s no chance of settling into any kind of steady groove; but that won’t happen even within individual tracks.

That’s not to say there aren’t grooves in the music. There are indeed groovy riffs — but also swarming riffs, needling riffs, jolting start-stop jabs, and technical lead-guitar flurries, along with maniacal, jet-fueled drum explosions, tiny eruptions of catchy melody, rampaging death-grind violence, channel-shifting electronic pulses, and horns. Yes, lurking within these 24 tracks are two that bring a bit of ska with horns — and then quickly beat the ska senseless.

In short, Jesusegg is one hell of a head-twisting trip, an explosion of creative grind exuberance that’s got lots of replay value. It should be very interesting to see what these people do next.

Okay, I’m done. You can listen to this now, or you can consider it an anti-Christmas present and open it on December 25. Or both.

Jesusegg is:

Ryan Weseling – Vocals
Cole Martinez – Guitars
Jamie Bibbs – Guitars
Jon Vinson – Drums

Jesusegg will be released on December 25 by Seeing Red on limited-edition CD and digitally. Pre-orders can be placed at the Bandcamp link below:

https://seeingredrecords.bandcamp.com/album/jesusegg
https://www.facebook.com/seeingredrecords/
https://www.facebook.com/Jesuseggband/