FDF Volume 2 Issue 104: Jesus Jones - Doubt

Album - Doubt
Artist - Jesus Jones
Key Players - Mike Edwards - Lead Vocals, Guitar, Jerry De Borg - Backing Vocals, Guitar, Iain Baker - Keyboards, Alan Doughty - Backing Vocals, Bass Guitar, Tony Arthy - Drums

Produced By - Jesus Jones

Release Date - January 29, 1991

What caused me to blow off the dust? - No specific thing got me to grab this record and give it that "one more spin".

Overview - Topping the UK charts with this, their second full length album Jesus Jones would become more widely known in America as the album would have two good charting singles. The end result would be Jesus Jones cracking the billboard top 200 albums and reaching number 25. The subsequent follow up sold moderate but never reached the same heights at the predecessor. The band would then go on a hiatus only to then be parted with their label.

FDF Comments (aka the songs) - A spoken word sample opens up "Trust Me" before hard driving drums come in. The band uses a lot of click drum tracks and swooping keyboards. This follows suit to some of the harder things they were doing on their debut album "Liquidizer". The subtle into on "Who? Where? Why?" quickly lapses in to an almost tribal feeling drum track. One of the singles to modern rock radio "International Bright Young Thing" has a punchier bass line and has a very techno pop feel to it based off the keyboard line. The looping bass line riff was used for one scene in the John Candy film "Uncle Buck". The semi' 'droning' keyboard intro to "I'm Burning" is nothing like the prior track. This changes and a chiming guitar is brought out more. It is a little more laid back that some of the earlier tracks, but still has that pop feel. Used in everything from a KMart ad to Hillary Clintons campaign song "Right Here, Right Now" is easily identifiable. The stop, break beat guitar and bass line are the tracks trademark. Machine gun drums and sort of buried spoken word vocals are found on "Nothing To Hold Me". Another modern rock radio track was "Real, Real, Real". Again, this follows suit with the bouncing keyboard and drum lines. The drums get a little more clicky on the intro to "Welcome Back Victoria" which has a single guitar come along with it. It has smooth bass lines but once more it is a little on the "drone" side of things. We go back to more up tempo and fun on "Are You Satisfied?". The chorus on this track is particularly catchy. Heaviness ensues on "Two And Two" as the drums really have more of a crunch. The techno sound is prominent throughout as well. Sounding like a Ministry cast off for the intro "Stripped" really gets going. Lyrics are pushed harder and there is a strong instrumental breakdown after the first chorus. The album closes with a deep keyboard groove on "Blissed". The guitar is playful over the top then the guitar sort of plays chords with some delay and single strong keyboard notes.


Where are they now? - The band is still active today both as Jesus Jones as well as with various side projects. According to the bands official site Mike Edwards has released an ep and has been working on "other projects" that are mostly songwriter/recording based. Jerry De Borg and Tony Arthy play shows in London from time to time with the band Sum Demeana. Tony has a second project with the band "Louder than Bombs". Iain Baker has a radio show on XFM. Alan Doughty is working with the Waco Brothers. The band will do two support shows for the Wonder Stuff in October 2008 in the UK.

FDF Personal Comments (aka the Live experience) - I have seen the band live on two occasions. One of them (date for sure) was October 10, 1991 at the Orpheum in Boston. The show was pretty good, but the opener was Ned's Atomic Dustbin (fdf) which brought me and my friends to spend the money on the double bill. The second time (or it could have been first time) was from what I can gather April 22 1991 at the Rocky Point Palladium in Rhode Island. My friend was working for a college radio station and he got us tickets. The Stereo MC's opened up the show and we had a pretty good time. After the show we had meet and greet passes. We get backstage with about 30-40 more people into this average sized room. There is food in the corner a few tables. People sit down and wait for the band to arrive. My friend and I take the last two seats at one table where nobody else was, but on the seats was jackets indicating someone planned or hoped to sit there. After a few minutes the band sort of begins to trickle in and it just so happens we are at the same table as the band. They all sit down and start chatting with us, telling us to get food and drink and hang out. For a good 15-20 minutes the whole room sort of waited their turn to say hi to the band. My buddy and I had a pretty good conversation with them all, they were all very nice.


FDF Overall Take - Some of this has aged pretty well considering. It is hard to "not" hear Right Here Right Now, but some of the other tracks on this record are worthy of tossing on the mp3 player. Not sure I'd load the whole thing, but a few will get added. Of the three Jesus Jones cds I own this is probably the easiest for the casual fan to get interested in.


Links
Official site

Curious? Check out some MUSIC!

the mp3's have been removed. they were:

Right Here Right Now
International Bright Young Thing
Are you Satisfied

Tracks were taken from "Doubt" which is really not hard to find for cheap money..but
here is a start

Disclaimer - For the most part songs listed you can find on iTunes or your local cd shop. The idea is to give you a little taste of the music. Please support the artist buy purchasing some of their work. Songs are posted for about 1 week but can and will be removed at the request of the artist, band, band management etc. If you are one of those persons contact me via the email link in the profile and they will be removed as soon as we are made aware of the request.