Band : Jenx

Album title : Fuseless

Label : Massacre

Distributor : Sure Shot Worx

Release date : 28/03/2008

Release : CD

From the Aquitaine region of France (roughly, between Bordeaux and Biaritz, the first also being the capitol city of the province) comes Jenx , an Industrial/ Metalcore quartet (comprised of singer/ bassist Xavier Bertrand , guitarists Jessy Perey and Maxime Lainey , and drummer Nicolas Larronde ) on stage joined by samples and machine handler Lyynx in the studio.

No idea whén they were formed, but their 4-track debut EP Unusual was issued during 2004 by the small Mono Emotional label. It was the stepping stone the band needed to end up sharing stages with the likes of Oomph! , Les Tambours Du Bronx , Loudblast , Dagoba , Gojira , Wormachine , Watcha , Jairus , and Punish Yourself . It has to be said that their music, which is a mixture of sounds remeniscent to Neurosis , Treponem Pal , Red Harvest , Filter , and modern Thrash Metal, lent itself perfectly as accomaniment of aforementioned bands.

In early July of last year, the small French label SL Records issued Jenx ' 11-track debut album, which was distributed by Season Of Mist (in France). The album shows a band which dares to diversify, on the one side adding samples, machine-generated noises, and electronic drum bits to otherwize aggressive guitar music. On the other side adding guitars for heavy effect to Eletronic music. For an example, check out myspace.com/jenxnoise, where the band posted 2 tracks off this album (album opener "Hole" , which definitely falls under the first category; and "Crawling Again" , which only partly falls under the second), plus no less than 3 off the EP ( "Unusual" , here in original version, is also featured on the album and a nice detail is that Les Tambours Du Bronx guest on it). This does nót give you an example of the band's more introvert side, as displayed in the Electro Metal track "Mute" . In essence an instrumental, the opening sample (stating that "The following program is intended for mature audiences") puts the finger on a sore spot when speaking about Metal fans in general, and their occasional lack of open-mindedness.

In addition to the original track-list, this re-issue through Massacre (intended for release in the rest of Europe) contains two bonus tracks. Nót "exclusive" to this release, as the label would have it...or at least not completely, because you can't use the EP version of "Demonhead" , and then claim it's exclusive (because it was already on the EP, see?). But the remix of the same track possibly is! In all, that gives us a total of 13 songs, which totals the album length to almost 53 minutes worth of truly good time! Personally, I might've liked even a bit more of electronics, but what the band offers is darn nice anyway! The overall sound is simply massive, the songs well-written, the execution perfect...what more can anyone into this music want for? I mean, after a couple of listening sessions all you'll see on my face is a happy smile!

Since the French release of Fuseless , the band hasn't been exactly workless. In fact, they've taken on a somewhat peculiar project last Summer when, on May 15 and June 6, they provided live music to the French silent movie The Call Of Cthulhu in a Bordeaux theater, as part of Le 7ème Printemps des Ciné Concerts . They repeated this on December 21, this time in a cinema at Limoges as part of the Execution festival. In between, they shared stages with Gojira and Paradise Lost at the L'Boulevard Festival in Casablanca, Marocco...and had their website jenxnoise.com re-designed. In their part of France, Jenx are known as one of the biggest hopefuls in Modern Metal...now let's see the guys crawl up North from the South-Western part of their home country to the rest of music-loving Europe, and the future of this quartet may well be very bright indeed! Hey, since the guys report already being busy writing new songs (and why not? After all the original album was released almost 8 months ago!)... Can't wait to hear the sophomore effort, but let's hope the cooperation with Massacre will indeed see the band tour...which would boost sales figures considerately.

90/100

Tony.