This story is featured in CityBeat's March 20 print edition.
The tagline for the link to Jesus Jones’ website reveals the following: “No, we didn’t split up. Come and find out …” It’s a curious declaration from a band that never fully left the musical landscape, another in a long procession of 1990s acts to hang in long after their commercial apex. The British fivesome (keyboardist Iain Baker, guitarist Jerry De Borg, bassist Jerry Doughty, singer/songwriter/guitarist Mike Edwards and drummer Simon “Gen” Matthews) are trailblazers of sorts, among the first acts to meld electronic dance music within a more typical rock and roll configuration. Yet it comes as no surprise that the band’s most popular song — the enduring radio staple “Right Here, Right Now” from 1991’s breakthrough second album Doubt — is among the most accessible of their efforts, a wistful mid-tempo tune about the fall of communism that, though infused with synthesizers and samples, climaxes with a guitar solo.
The rise of grunge would soon bump Jesus Jones and the like-minded wave of sleek electro-rock and pop acts from the U.K. (see The Soup Dragons, EMF, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and so many more) from the alternative spotlight — a colorful footnote amid an aesthetically downcast era. Jesus Jones’ third album, 1993’s Perverse, was among the efforts buried in history, but it remains an interesting artifact, darker and fuzzier than anything in the band’s discography. It’s also noted as the first album created entirely via a computer, which, depending on your point of view, can be seen as a fascinating evolution in the creation of sound or a soul-numbing slide into the overly synthetic.
The band, which has dropped only one record in the last 23 years (2018’s Passages), intended to tour the U.S. last year but ran into visa issues. This spring’s rescheduled run includes a Cincinnati stop that will feature an array of songs from the band’s discography. Per their website: “It’s the original lineup, so Al will be with us on bass, and we’ll play material from across these 35 years, from ‘Info,’ which was written in the summer of 1988, to our new single ‘Still Smiling,’ written in the summer of 2023. Amazingly, it’s been three decades since the original five-piece lineup toured the U.S., so it’s an extra-special occasion for us.”
Jesus Jones plays Ludlow Garage on March 29 at 7:30 p.m. Info: ludlowgaragecincinnati.com.
