Superjesus - Love and Violence

This EP was released in 2016 and marked Superjesus' return from hiatus following the 2003 release of the Rock Music album.

Come back To Me jumps straight into a rock-solid groove that conjures up images of industrial machines on a grand scale. Then, provided you turn a blind ear to the recording quality faults, the chorus is a great head-banging effort. At first I noticed that it's slower than Superjesus' earlier efforts, but then are there actually any bands that have got faster as they've gotten older??

The final track is a live version of Come Back to Me which is very nice sounding for a live recording (with a minor blemish of some distortion in the tom toms). I really enjoy the slight Scottish lilt of the singer's vocals, and the rawer live version brings it out wonderfully. Therefore I think the live recording actually sounds better than the studio one.

On the other hand, Setting Sun is a dog's breakfast of recording quality. If you can get past this, the pre-chorus and chorus are full of inspirational head-banging goodness. Then, St Peters Lane? No thanks, the lyrics don't resonate at all for me.

All of the stars are perfectly aligned for Love and Violence and the tempo is slightly faster. It all adds up to... you guessed it... great head-banging times.

"Throoooowwwww myseeeeeelf into the sea" is the perfect way to start a great headbanging chorus, let alone the master-stroke of launching straight into this as the song's opening gambit (rather than easing in via a chorus etc). Add in swirling guitars and great lyrical imagery throughout the song, and the result is wall-to-wall brilliance. And that, in a nutshell, is Sea Song.

Audio quality rant

Hmmm, this is going to get ugly... The vocals are over-processed to the point of sounding plasticky, there's a grating harshness to the high-pitched sounds, and there's lots of distortion on the drums and vocals (Setting Sun is terrible for this). Also the tonal balance varies greatly between songs, as if each song was mastered by a different person.

Clutching straws to find a bright side within this dogs breakfast, there's great spaciousness and good balance between the vocals and instruments. But when the nicest sounding song on the disc is a live recording, that's a poor reflection on all of the other songs.

 

Favourite songs

Come Back to Me, Love and Violence, Sea Song, Come Back to Me (live)

 

I diggit? 

Yes. I was already a huge Superjesus fan, and really enjoy this new direction for the band.