“Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse” by Jesse Daniel Edwards

“Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse” by Jesse Daniel Edwards

Nashville-based singer-songwriter Jesse Daniel Edwards returns with Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse, his boldest and most incendiary release yet. Split into two digital EPs - Requiem Mass (June 27th) and Catechism En Masse (July 25th) - and combined as a physical LP to be released on July 25 via Cavity Search Records, the project represents a searing, spiritual, and political reckoning. It is not an album meant to passively stream in the background. It is a work to be confronted, lived with, wrestled with, and ultimately answered.

"It's a snapshot," Edwards explains, "a snapshot of what happens when you sit alone in a room long enough with the world outside caving in and ask yourself, 'What am I responsible for?'" In that spirit, Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse emerges as a record not only of grief, but of furious questioning - of capitalism, technology, consumerism, apathy, and the political theatre that has come to define American life.

The title itself is a dichotomy: Requiem Mass suggests a solemn mourning, a ritual for the dead, while Catechism En Masse hints at indoctrination on a grand scale. "This record is about the death of things," Edwards says, "and about the ways we've been taught to live that might be killing us." What he delivers is a darkly poetic liturgy for a society unravelling at the seams, wrapped in punk-folk defiance and moments of aching vulnerability.

Unlike previous records, which saw Edwards single-handedly performing nearly every instrument, this project marks a departure into collaboration. Recorded over months of experimentation, he brought in outside musicians for the first time in his solo discography, choosing connection over control. "I'd always been afraid that bringing others in would dilute the vision," he says. "But it did the opposite. These songs needed more than just me. They needed the tension, the dialogue, the human element."

Thematically, the album is dense, urgent, and unflinching. "Fine Print" tears into bureaucratic manipulation with scalpel precision. "Biting Off the Hand That Feeds" explores addiction and consumer dependence as tools of control. In "I Don’t Wanna Be Good (I Wannabe God)," Edwards laces religious language with bitter irony: "Love is all you need / But love won’t stop bombs." Other tracks - like "Ads You Can Taste" - pivot between dystopian satire and bleak nostalgia. "We are inundated," he says. "We see 5,000 ads a day. We don’t even realise how manipulated we are. This record is about waking up inside the machine."

Born in the mountain town of Cuyamaca, California, Edwards was raised in a strict religious household before busking his way through America and Europe. His early music, rooted in Americana, evolved into something more theatrical and sonically adventurous. His 2023 release, Violensia, brought sweeping, piano-driven operatics to the forefront, while 2025’s stripped-down, self-titled LP, Jesse Daniel Edwards, was recorded live to 2-track tape in Memphis and offered a raw, emotional counterpoint.

But Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse is a different beast altogether. It doesn't just challenge genre - it challenges the listener. "What if you made something no one would ever see? What would you make then?" Edwards asks. "That's where this started. What is art when no one's watching?" The answer, in his view, is freedom. "There is freedom in being unheard, unseen. A freedom ever more scarce in this zero-privacy age."

With songs like "How Do You Keep Your Hands So Clean?" - an accusatory refrain levelled at those who turn a blind eye - and "The Future Has Been Cancelled," Edwards reaches past political talking points and into existential territory. "This isn't about right or left," he says. "It's about human survival. It's about compassion and outrage. We're not here to retweet injustice. We're here to fight it."

Edwards doesn’t offer clean solutions, but instead demands personal accountability. His voice - often strained, howling, or whispering - is the sound of someone not only sounding the alarm, but begging you to hear it. "We have to work outside of failed political channels. We can't wait for them to fix anything. We are the community. We are the ones who can act."

This call to action is echoed in tracks like "Power of Us," a spiritual anthem that reimagines solidarity as a sacred duty. "No saviour is coming," Edwards says. "The power is in the ordinary people who stop making excuses and start doing something. What if you cancelled just one streaming subscription and used that money to help a displaced family in your city? What if you spent just an hour listening to someone who's suffering?"

Despite the album's heavy subject matter, there are glimmers of warmth, dark humour, and even hope. "I Don't Wanna Do It" wrestles with conformity and mental health with self-aware resignation. "Nobody's Problem" asks whether we are victims or villains - or just reflections of a broken system. In each song, the listener is both implicated and invited in.

And though Edwards resists easy comparisons, fans of politically-charged songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Conor Oberst, Patti Smith, or early Sinead O'Connor will find kinship in the sharp lyrical bite and moral weight of Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse. But Edwards remains impossible to pin down - equal parts punk prophet, poet-philosopher, and street-corner preacher with a guitar and a grudge.

For Edwards, music isn't about escape - it's about confrontation. "Was this made in freedom?" he asks. "Or was it just more noise?" In a media landscape dominated by trends and distractions, he dares to slow things down. To question. To mourn. To rage. To remember.

As the physical LP approaches release, Edwards isn’t measuring success by sales or streams. "The point was never to go viral," he says. "The point was to make something honest. Something that might matter. Even if it's only to one person."

In a cultural moment defined by over-saturation and numbness, Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse offers something increasingly rare: a reason to feel again. And perhaps, in that feeling, a path toward action.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT ALEX STEININGER AT IN MUSIC WE TRUST PR: alex@inmusicwetrust.com