JODIS To Release 'Black Curtain' In October

JODIS, the band featuring members of KHANATE, ISIS, MAMIFFER, BLIND IDIOT GOD, OLD, KHLYST, and OLD MAN GLOOM, will release its sophomore album, "Black Curtain", on October 2 via Hydra Head Records. The follow-up to 2007's "Secret House" will be available via limited vinyl LP, CD, and digital.

Known for their work in the dark recesses of heavy music via such vehicles as KHANATE, ISIS and BLIND IDIOT GOD, the trio of Aaron Turner, James Plotkin and Tim Wyskida would have found it easy enough to kick out something adequately dark and crushing with the formation of JODIS in 2007. Certainly outside expectations of what the group would sound like fell along those lines, but to the dismay of some and the delight of others, the final results were altogether more lush, melodic, and downright beautiful than anything previously imagined. The foundation for their debut album, "Secret House", was laid around a careful synthesis of Plotkin and Wiskyda's reductive, mercurial rhythmic interplay coupled with Turner's knack for constructing monolithic sounds and dramatic ambience. Each note was deliberate. The gaps between notes were as important as the notes themselves. Tempos were made malleable. But a clear sense of structure and a dreamy, understated elegance threaded through the album's seven tracks to produce an alluring, if somewhat bleak sonic landscape for the listener.

After several years of steady concentrated work, JODIS has returned with its sophomore album, "Black Curtain". Once again, the trio's emphasis on sparseness and tension remains in full force, but is tempered by a greater focus on melody and slow blooming song structure. While its predecessor thrived on a kind of predatory patience, "Black Curtain"'s reserve is more of a salve than a threat. The album opens with "Broken Ground", where spikes of reverb- drenched guitar sprawl across a humming electronic horizon, over which delicately draped vocal melodies twist, collide and dissolve. Drums occasionally rise from the ether, punctuating the meditative passages of pastoral calm. The band continues to explore the many outlets of their panoramic minimalism across the airy expanses of "Silent Temple", the shimmering melancholy of "Red Bough", the hymn-like repetition of "Corridor", and the mantric chants of "Awful Feast". The more visceral and vitriolic elements of JODIS's members' past work are put on hold for the majority of "Black Curtain". But the thunderous low-tuned throbs of guitar and strong-armed pounding of the drums rear their head in the closing track "Beggar's Grasp". Even in this rousing close to the album, the harmonious core is retained, and the listener is immersed in the depths of the sound around them, rather than mercilessly suffocated by it.

"Black Curtain" is no doubt heavy — emotionally, even sonically — but its true strength lies in its graceful reserve and reverential worship of gray-skied beauty.

"Black Curtain" vinyl track listing:

01. Broken Ground
02. Silent Temple
03. Awful Feast
04. Red Bough
05. Corridor
06. Beggar's Grasp

"Black Curtain" CD track listing:

01. Broken Ground
02. Silent Temple
03. Red Bough
04. Corridor
05. Awful Feast
06. Beggar's Hand