David M Rangel / November 12, 2025 / Reviews
Jesse Daniel Edwards is a serious man. He’s a serious musician who composes serious songs that shun the typicalities of rock ‘n’ roll. The components that draws you in and make you want to listen more, lie less in “pop” catchiness, and more in intrigue and the anticipation of what he will say and play next. Edwards is s serious musical orator who lyrically bathes in the ills of society, set to sounds which can range from slightly off kilter theatricality, to organized auditory chaos.
Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse is a two part extended play album which creates a musical Yin-Yang balance. At first listen, one gets the sense that Edwards is another artist delving in the theatrical, piano-based sounds of quirky indie artists like Andrew Bird, Rufus Wainwright, Tori Amos and the like. But, unlike the often whimsical tunes of those artists, Edwards uses the piano as a tool that becomes more manic (and often, more obscured) with each song. The melancholia of a record like Pink Floyd’s The Wall comes through here as does an often cacophonous, almost operatic Kaleidoscope soundscape in the vein of The Who’s Tommy and Quadrophenia. Edwards does this with vocals that seem to be on a mission to sing, shout, strain and call to action against societal factors and systems that we as Americans tend to accept or ignore.
Edwards states that this record is about “the death of things” and “ the ways we’ve been taught to live, that might be killing us”. While he doesn’t claim to have solutions for problems, such as crass consumerism, political manipulation, and forms of technology used to control the masses, he does implore the listener to examine where he/she stand in the current sociopolitical climate. Feel compassion. Feel outrage. Feel something, but be aware that we are in survival mode. We can’t wait for higher powers to fix things. We need to act, whether it’s by art or other means. Needless to say, the dystopian, existentialist tone of the overall record make Radiohead look like they have the problems of adolescent schoolboys.
The first half of the record, (Requiem Mass) gives an upbeat, quasi jazz-style feel. Tracks like “Fine Print” and “Biting Off The Hand That Feeds” ring out breezily despite their scathing lyrics, taking a stand against bureaucratic manipulation/control and addiction, respectively (the latter employs a brief foray into psychedelia). However rigid the subject matter, the music belies it by being listener-friendly, if not happy.
It’s when we get to the second half of the album (Catechism En Masse) that the record delves into a tension-filled sense of paranoia. It creates a nightmarish feel both musically and lyrically. “Look, I Don’t Like The Look Of That Look” is one of the strongest examples of this with its creepy, cloying guitars that snake through painted lyrical photos such as “That sound in the basement / it’s getting louder / someone’s been living down there” and “and the truth / of the matter / no longer matters / even the truth has rolled over and died“. All of this, being sung to the tune of a vocal where Edwards sounds reminiscent of The Fall’s Mark E. Smith. Fitting, indeed.
As unhinged and dramatic as this record can be, it’s not completely devoid of occasional familiar sounds of conventional indie rock bands. There are echos of any number of post-punk bands in the harbinger of bleakness that is “The Future’s Been Canceled”. “Nobody’s Problem” is arguably the most tuneful cut that leads us to the end of a record that is not only a challenge to take in, but one that leaves you feeling like you’ve listened to something that is not only mind-bending, but of substance. You get a sense of having been entertained, in some strange way, and also perhaps, a new or awakened awareness of the challenges we all face as part of a machine that never stops.
Jesse Daniel Edwards is a singer, composer, and (in a loose sense of the word) a philosopher on a mission. It has been written that Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse is a record that is not meant to be passively streamed in the background – and rightfully so. There’s just too much to think about, if we as listeners are taking in and wrestling with the artist’s message, as he intended. It’s clearly a record that “sinks in“ with multiple plays. Entertainment factor aside, it’s a digital array of messages which it would behoove us to ponder or at least store away for future consideration.
Listen to Catechism En Mass here, and Requiem Mass here.
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