Perverse is the third studio album by British rock band Jesus Jones, released in 1993 on Food Records.

After their international success following the release of Doubt (1991), Jesus Jones, especially band leader Mike Edwards, conceived Perverse as a darker, more contemporary album.

Edwards wrote the lyrics of the album during the band's 1991 tour, using a Roland W-30 sampler to conceive songs in their earliest stages.

According to Trouser Press, Perverse "enjoys the historical distinction of being the first album recorded entirely (except for Edwards' vocals) on computer.

"[2] The band recorded the entire album onto floppy disks in Edwards' house, which were then used on his computer to turn the music into "zeroes and ones".

"[4] For the album's follow-up, Perverse, Jesus Jones, especially band leader, lyricist and vocalist Mike Edwards and keyboardist Iain Baker, decided to venture further into the technological side of recording music.

[5] Erlewine described Edwards' aim for Perverse as "his mission to make techno palatable for the pop masses.

Edwards' aim for recording Perverse was to take the techniques and 'attitudes' of techno, a genre he viewed as the "most progressive and creative form of popular music at the moment," but use them to create a rock album.

He told one journalist, "ultimately it made things more interesting for me as a writer, mostly because of the degree of editability at every stage of what you do - notes, timing, sounds - as long as the data exists, it's all changeable.

"[7] While recording the album, Edwards "turned every song into binary codes, then fiddled with them until he had achieved a suitably hi-tech noise.

When Edwards first started writing the songs on Perverse, he envisioned the album as containing "these big buzzy synths, basically the equivalent of heavy metal guitars, but more exciting because less clichéd", and felt the JD-800 "was perfect for manufacturing hard, unusual sounds.

[13] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic, describing Perverse as an artistic expanding of the band's sound, called the album "a synthesis of techno/rave dance music with traditional pop/rock songs and structures.

[7] Compared to the Young Gods, a primary influence on the album, Baker felt the music on Perverse was not as leftfield in style.

"[13] "The Devil You Know" features tingly elements resembling Eastern music,[16] starting with a notably high-pitched Iranian instrument.

[11] The synthesized basslines on "From Love To War" was influenced by LFO, whose 1991 album Frequencies was Edwards' favourite of that year.

[13] The former song features, as Simon Reynolds described them, "baleful, treated noises, and looped samples of voice low in the mix.

"[12] In the album's liner notes, "Don't Believe It" is described with the caption: ""May '92, with a little ignorance and media manipulation, there is a whipping boy for every occasion.

"[12] According to The Tech, "Zeroes and Ones", whose name is a reference to the binary code and the album's recording method, concerns "the increasing prominence of computers in daily life, from pocket calculators and shopping at home to missile guiding and virtual sex.

[19] As the band's commercial momentum never recovered, Pitchfork later included Perverse in their list of "ten career-killing albums" from the 1990s.

"[24] Douglas D. Keller of The Tech was more favourable, saying Perverse is "an engaging album with very contemporary ideas and the potential to shape the course of alternative and techno in the near future.

"[12] Later reviews have been more favourable; in a retrospective review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic rated the album four stars out of five, saying that it is "an ambitious album that works sporadically," saying that, although "too often, the hooks are submerged beneath layers of computerized noise and aren't strong enough to pull themselves out," "when Perverse clicks, Jesus Jones gives the listener an idea of how enjoyable a successful marriage of techno and rock could be.

[13] Shane Pinnegar of 100Percent Rock Magazine, in a 2015 interview with Edwards, described the album as good, but noted "it isn’t remembered as being as quintessentially ‘of its time’ as Doubt is," believing this to be due to its topical themes.

[25] Edwards replied, "yeah, obviously that approach stuck with me, which is why Perverse not only sounds the way it does, but has the lyrical themes that it does – including the now quaintly amusing idea that the internet might actually be quite an interesting thing!

"[25] Perverse was remastered and re-released as a deluxe edition on 17 November 2014 by Edsel Records alongside the band's other albums.