Year Of Metal #022: Jerusalem - Jerusalem
Somehow Jerusalem strike me as being before, of, and behind their time all at once. They popped up on the UK rock scene in the early ‘70s, released one album in 1972, then disappeared without leaving much of a trace. Their sole self-titled effort is an intriguing look into the state of Britain’s metal scene at the time, most particularly in terms of its influences.
Jerusalem’s got plenty of dragging, stomping riffs and ragged guitars, but it feels based far more in the blues than the likes of Black Sabbath or acts that would follow just a little while into the decade. This sounds pretty great on tracks like “I See The Light”, which takes the structure and swing of classic blues but strips away a lot of the showiness and tasteful jazz influences of a lot of the ‘60s UK scene in favour of raw power. I like the relentless, insistent drumming from Ray Sparrow, which is a bit proto-Meg White. It’s simple to the point of witlessness but that’s clearly intentional. Anything fancier would just muddy the waters.
“Primitive Man” is probably the best song on the record as well as the heaviest. The guitars crash over Lynden Williams’ strained vocals. There’s nothing wild at play here - it’s just a six minute rocker about a caveman, lurching through faster segments and creeping through slower bits. There are doom elements here that I like, along with more characterful guitar playing, which is a highlight across the whole album.
When Jerusalem gets goofy, it really gets goofy. “Murderer’s Lament” (choice lyric: “here I sit, I’m very sad”) is a rare hard rock song about an incel with a big performative vocal and a structure a bit too complicated for its own good (three metre changes by the time the singing starts 40 seconds in). There’s absolutely a charm to it but it hasn’t aged especially well. The lead guitar work, however, once again shines. It’s so well voiced - it’s hard to find much information at all about the members of this band (even on their own - surprisingly recently updated - website), but I wonder if they were session guys cutting loose at long last.
Closer “She Came Like A Bat From Hell” suffers a similar fate, but it’s here that Jerusalem sound a little ahead of the curve. With its double entendre-ish title and most particularly the band’s decision to completely drop the doom monger facade in favour of pure rock fun, it’s an enjoyable end to the record, even if they still shoot themselves in the foot a little with a needlessly complex structure. They also completely half inch the riff from “Highway Chile” for good measure.
By the time Jerusalem dropped, Sabbath were already several albums deep, including the imperious and much more forward-thinking Master Of Reality, so it’s not too surprising these guys didn’t make so much of an impact. Still, in “Primitive Man” they’ve got a bonafide entry into the early UK metal canon, and the blues trappings of it all are very interesting.
