Through their project Praises, Jesse Crowe takes an abjuring glance at the false mask of the world and digs their claws into the guts of tradition on their second LP, appropriately named, In This Year: Hierophant. The Hierophant is both a pillar of custom and rule in the tarot, and an interpreter of the supernatural and the arcane in Greek orthodoxy, a holy person pursuing methods that uncover God's will through miracle and misfortune alike. Jesse's album twists and bends and restructures the rituals of the ages through the careful selection of titles and themes expressed through their songs, such as on "Our Father" where they scry through a prism of curiosity and caution to discern the makeup of a man who is distant but who is known dearly, their Prometheus in a way, a creature over whose soul they secretly place a magnifying glass, observing the fibers of his will and watching his bones shift below his skin. Another example of their mastery of the arcane arts can be found on "Persona," where they appear to turn their instruments of perception inward to encircle the being burning alive inside them, gazing on as it dances in silence despite its painful contact with the scorching recessed wall of their interior, a Bronze Bull furnace that will never release its prize. To unseal these gifts of perception, they join with their band in manifesting a gothic Americana night club act to entice the devils of our better natures and snare the sinister angels of our most terrible ideals. It is a performance that walks the fault lines of the planes between the living and the damned, tugging and sowing the frayed bounds between them so that they may be restored upon contact with the resounding, dark overture of their voice. It is a collapse into the old ways, splitting like the shell of an egg to exalt the birth to the new. Watch as Praises turns over the next card, the card you have been waiting for with bated breath, the one that will expose your fate to the sight of your tearful eyes. Soon it will all become clear, In This Year: Hierophant.
