The following are quite a few smaller reviews. If you find any others on
the new or in a magazine, please send them to me and i'll post them (giving
full credit as well). Also, if you've written a review of a
Godflesh or related review, send it my way, and
I'll get it on the page. Thanks for your time.
-slateman.
Last
Updated:
24th
July
Added:
-Reformatting begun (not nearly finished!)
Prior
Additions:
-Hrm...too long ago
Review from:
A&A home page (issue #82, 8/14/95)
I generally don't review re-issues, but since this one hasn't been
available in the U.S. for a long time, I decided to say my peace.
Lighter than Streetcleaner, obviously, but you can hear the elements
coming together. With Wound, one of the bonus tracks, you can hear the
beginnings of the ideas that became Slavestate.
Sure, this is probably worth more as a historical document, particularly
considering the album that followed. But remember: back in 1990 no one had any
idea how to react to this stuff. And most today are still dumbfounded.
Review from:
The Undiscovered Country--Issue 2
This is the British grindcore band's
newest release, a single in the classic industrial style of two songs
and two remixes. Or alternate mixes. Whatever they are, the last
three tracks are essentially the same song, so this ends up being a
Godflesh song and then some protracted background music that doesn't
vary that much. However, this release is important in that it gets
back to more of the core of Godflesh: industrial emotion, harshness,
a conveyance of rage and pain and fear and resignation. The sound has
moved closer to the mainstream through the loss of the scratchy,
hellish, deathlike vocals of past albums and through a newer tendency
toward occasional mellowness through less reliance on the distorted
guitar clawing of guitarist/vocalist Justin Broadrick
(Napalm Death/Head of David/Scorn)
The title track starts softly but then
progresses into the power of full drum machine anger and distorted
guitar, bringing back more of the feel of Streetcleaner than
anything else. Many hardcore Godflesh fans may feel it's a sellout,
but I value this release because it escapes the formulaic nature of
some of their recent stuff. At least the band hasn't festered,
despite Broadrick and bassist G.C. Green working on other projects,
including the Mick Harris/John Zorn colaboration
Painkiller
It's a newer start, a return, but most of all some hope for an
otherwise stagnant band.
Review by:
Hans Huttel in rec.music.reviews (June 16th, 1992)
Godflesh, Ministry and
Voivod have all been called "industrial metal"
but they have little in common. The most frequent comparison is
between Godflesh and Ministry. They do have
a few things in common.
For one thing, they have toured together. What's more, they both bands
have a strong following in both the thrash and the industrial
communities. [If you don't believe me, check out rec.music.industrial
and alt.thrash.]
Godflesh and Ministry both use heavily
processed vocals, grungy
guitars, drum machines and samples. But where
Ministry are ultra-fast
and use the drum machine to do things that a drummer wouldn't be able
to do, Godflesh are slow and sombre, the drumulator pounding out a
heavy, simple rhythm with deep, distorted grindcore guitars and
samples on top. And [mark my words] NO guitar soloes!
For some reason, Godflesh have never been that popular in their native
Britain. They have certainly never been approved of by the infallible
NME. I get the feeling that things are very different on the other
side of the Atlantic.
As my use of the word grindcore sort of implies, Godflesh is the
brainchild of ex-Napalm Death member
Justin Broadrick. On this, their
latest offering, Godflesh is a trio consisting of Broadrick, Ben
Green and Robert Hampson who used to be in
Loop but now seems to have
become a full-time member of Godflesh.
The CD Pure is without doubt the longest CD in my collection. It
clocks in at 79:46, and the last 20+ minutes are taken up by Pure II
which is nothing but ambient feedback. Bound to give you a haedache or
two. The other tracks are more traditional, structurally (as far as
Godflesh is concerned is, i.e. adhering to the drum machine +
grindcore + samples formula). The title track, Pure, begins with a
samba-like rhythm that suddenly mutates into the pounding menace of a
typical Godflesh beat. Baby Blue Eyes would not appeal to Frank
Sinatra; following a weird sample we get what I _think_ is a song
about genetic experiments. But I really wouldn't want to comment on
the lyrics of Pure; the vocals are heavily processed an almost
always unintelligible, and I tend to think of Godflesh as instrumental
music. I mean, if they were serious about the lyrics, they would have
included a lyric sheet.
My personal favourites have to be Mothra and I Wasn't Born To
Follow, however. The former has a pleasantly dissonat sample as the
intro, and the latter has an almost standard riff throughout the song,
only the riff is given the full grindcore treatment so that it sounds
extremely threatening. There is also the bizarrely titled Love, Hate
(Slugbaiting) (Godflesh love bizarre song titles).
So, you may ask, do I Like Pure? Yes, definitely. Listen to it
whenever you are in that special, strange, angry, sad mood. And oh
yes, the CD itself has some realy nice artwork.
Review From:
A&A home page (issue #58, 7/15/94)
I can't think of a person who doesn't consider Streetcleaner one of the
greatest albums of all time. Not just metal or industrial or whatever. One of
the greatest albums, period.
Which leaves the past few years as disappointing, of course.
Godflesh has
gone a little more on the industrial dance side, perhaps trying to be more
accessible but ending up just weaker. Here, however, I think the chips are
starting to fall correctly.
No, nothing will ever match Streetcleaner. And even if it did, who
would say so? But with the heavy-yet-groovy beats underscoring a real
assault of distortion and despair, Merciless has
Godflesh on the right
track. This sounds like a compilation of some of the boys fine side projects.
I wouldn't have believed it, but it seems
Godflesh may be making an artistic
comeback. I sure hope so.
Review From:
A&A home page (issue #64, 10/15/94)
Sounding a lot more like Fudge Tunnel
than their own recent outings, Justin
and G. Christian plow their way through an upbeat (for
Godflesh) tune. Even
the lyrics aren't terminally depressing. The thing is, it even sounds good,
unlike the plain blandness of Pure. The trademark screaming guitars
make a passing appearance, but
Godflesh seems to have updated, remaining musically relevant.
The 15-plus minute remix is a bit much, but still interesting. I'm not sure
if I could sit through the whole thing if I were listening to the radio,
though. Try 8- or 10-minute snippets.
Review From:
A&A home page (issue #64, 10/15/94)
After a trip through this disc, I had to ask myself what it was that made
me think Godflesh was spent. Selfless is stunning, and I wanted to know
where I got that idea.
So I listened to Pure again, and it all came back. I mean,
Pure just had no power. It was another heavy industrial album. Despite
some great side outings, I admit that I wrote the main act off, consigning
Godflesh to my "once cool, now mundane" file.
In a word, WRONG! Selfless is a return to the powerful days of old.
The production is much cleaner than Streetcleaner, but the same
attitude and sheer force remain. The recent EP tipped me off, but these are
the goods.
Back with a vengeance, Godflesh
seems intent on destroying all potential usurpers to the throne. The King
was dead. Long live the King!
Review From:
www.anus.com/metal
An original member of Napalm Death
went on to this spacier, rhythmic and darkly harmonic masterpiece of
industrial expression.
Production: Clear and roomy. Like
being near-left stage.
Review: Slicing angular progressions
pull together to form
a a metamorphosizing series of phrases, dynamic entities moving
radically in a fairly free but sparse shape of sound.
Guitar climbs through tones, pulling them from unconscious corners
of musical composition, building a ranging collusion of tones falling
over one another, moving in and out of one another. The music moves
on its own impulse, a life odd for music made to abrade and destroy,
to grind into the nihilistic cynicism and indecision, fear, of the
decades of mechanistic darkness the world festers in now.
Godflesh's Selfless chronicles
this band in an uncanny way.
One can see the delight in drawn-out guitar noises fading slowly over
odd industral beats that marked their first album, and then observe
both the powerful, shifting riffs and the modulating percussion of
Streetcleaner, and then the desire for tightness and a more
rock-n-roll riff structure of pure, all melded into a streamlined,
simplified, but still living, beautiful package of industrial sound.
I'd be pushing it to read Slavestate in some of the background
low noises and strange samples that fill in the space between notes
or beats like hallucinationsfill in the swimming gaps of boredom in reality.
Godflesh were the original industrial
grindcore band, with layered,
zoned-out guitars drifting across each other in odd electrical
precision, with the distorted voice alternately strung over the music
like lights at a carnival or percussively entranced with it, playing
away from it and to it, coarsely battering out vague images and
linguistic capsules of confined abstract thinking. This pace moved
on to a more dance-industrial feel on their third album, but at that
point, all of the pop-industrial bands in the world had heard the
Godflesh sound, and the result shined through, notably with
Skinny Puppy, Nine
Inch Nails, and the vaunted Ministry.
As life cycles
through its inverses, one can see the cross-influence occur, with
the ideas of those influenced coming back to the original creators.
This new Godflesh is less guitar, more beat and
moving tempo, and has more of an instant-aesthetic than the darker
caverns of understanding forced by the older, denser styles.
The drum machine has been taken more seriously as an artistic
device than the simple rhythmkeeper it became on parts of
Slavestate and Pure. Guitar fades out, but keyboards,
static and beautifully subtle samples build up a sound, not as much
around the industrial pounding of the drum machine, but with it,
integrated into its style to play with what it can do, and to mock it,
occasionally.
Justin Broadrick's (guitar, vocals) voice is less of a distorted
howl for most of this album, although he reaches moments of vaguely
savagery. He works the parts he sings to work within the music
instead of laying a pop aesthetic over the sounds, the structure of
the art. Let it be said, however, that the lyrics have gotten
terrible and mainstream on this album, from the predictable rhymes
to the traditional alienation/rebellion song topics. Not all are
this way, and in fact, most seem to be innocuous allusions, but
those that are stand out as glaring dumbness in a position of grace.
Behind it all, the cheesegrater bass of B.G. (perhaps that is
G.C.?) Green powers the rhythm, and adds a rust encrusted blast of
abrasion, but fails to integrate musically into the new vision
constructed here except as previously noted. It doesn't hurt, but
it leaves a hanging "why - why not?" question as to the
compositional aspects of that instrument on this release.
Selfless wraps itself up in a protracted and beautiful instrumental
noise collage, with Broadrick showing the best of his revolutionary
spirit wearing a mask of too much world-experiential data, with an
adherence to a conception of sound that can be seen struggling to
bring its ends together, an idea that powers itself with the need to
resolve something without the desire to limit the crazy freedom of the
world with that action.
Review From:
Dead Angel
(Issue #7)
Highlights
Xynobis, Black Boned Angel, Empyreal, Heartless, Mantra
My, but this is gloriously obnoxious. And very static; not only is the
album generally reeeeeeeaaaaalllllllll ssssslllllllloooooooooooooowwww, even
more so than OTHER Godflesh albums, but
most of the five to eight minutes songs
are built around a maximum of two (maybe three) riffs. Now, this is either
incredibly hypnotic and spartan, and thus the word of total radiating genius
(my opinion) or merely repetitive and unimaginative, plus real irritating
(everybody else I've talked to who's heard it). It DOES sound much,
much better than previous albums, thanks to all that $$$ from
Columbia, so for
the first time we can actually hear what the hell Benny's doing in the
background at last, and the usual subterranean crunch actually has some
definition this time around. Of course, if it only makes you want to open
the CD player and sail the shiny little disc out the window, that's kind of a
moot point, eh? But whatever....
Godflesh has had this tendency to keep shaving
away at its sound for
the past few albums, apparently in an attempt to distill everything down
to its simplest form possible; this album is no exception, and I'm not
sure you can GET any more basic than this. As already mentioned, the
main formula here is to throw in two (maybe three if Justin's feeling merciful)
riffs per song, played over and over reeeeeeeal slow for anywhere from
five to ten minutes until you are totally numbed with fear and loathing or
have started searching for the receipt so you can return the damn thing.
Sort of like the musical equivalent of watching a slow-motion train wreck
with lots of weak flesh being crushed beneath the diesel engine's mighty
wheels, in other words. No kidding, this is so slow that if they got any
slower, they'd be standing still.
Black Sabbath at half-speed? More like
Black Sabbath at one note per minute.
Hell, it's even slower than the Earth
CD reviewed a few albums back! Yow!
While this isn't the slowest thing ever recorded (I think
Type O Negative already copped that honor
with the twenty-bpm Bloody Kisses),
it might be the heaviest and most dismal. This is music for beating loved
ones to death with an axe handle while they sleep. Some of the songs like
Crush My Soul and Body Dome Light could actually qualify as
dance music, I guess, if you extend the idea of dance music to include
radically detuned guitars being used as blunt instruments, and you could sort
of mosh to the rest, if you were underwater. And for the total masochist, the
CD includes --lucky you! -- a paralyzing 23-minute hatefest called Go
Spread Your Wings, in which Justin screams "I'll never escape" about a
million times while backed by what sounds like the
Emerson, Lake and Palmer of Earth-X, where
everything is death metal, even the Muzak. This
is godlike in its annoyance potential. Makes me wonder what new standard
in obnoxiousness they'll set with the NEXT album. Or how long they'll
be hooked up with Columbia, for that matter.
Review From:
Fish Rap Online
(Issue 5.7)
It's always amazed me how many good bands have been formed by ex-members of
Napalm Death. Napalm
Death's old vocalist, Lee Dorian, is now the singer/songwriter for the
Black-Sabbath-meets-Steve-Miller-meets-My-Dying-Bride doom band Cathedral;
Bill Amott, ND's guitarist, now helms the mighty
Carcass; and Justin
Broadrick, Napalm Death's former bassist [*Not
Exactly..rather guitarist*-slate], is
now half of the musical entity known as Godflesh.
Justin, along with guitarist G.C. Green, has been putting out some of the
heaviest (and weirdest) music ever to defy description for quite a few years
now. It's amazing to think that two Brits and a drum machine could influence
a generation of up-and-coming headbangers so profoundly, but they have. Not
that they're exactly metal, Godflesh's sound isn't
too easy to pin down. Just imagine something that could be classified as
"heavy industrial creepy doom alternative death." Anyway you say it,
they're still fucking great.
I've been a slobbering Godflesh fan for quite
some time now. Imagine my excitement upon finding an advance copy of the
duo's latest album, Selfless, in a local used tape shop. I immediately
rushed home and threw it in my tape deck. And then...
Let's just say that Godflesh, like
Skinny Puppy, gets stranger and stranger
with each consecutive release. Selfless maintains the depressing,
gloomy
grind of the previous releases, while infusing it with a bit more melody.
The trademark riffs, alternating between heavy and eardrum-piercing,
bizarre drum beats, and throbbing bass are still evident, but the changes
are noticeable. The guitars are a little cleaner, the songs are catchier,
and there's actual singing on this record! The first song, Xnoybis, scared
the hell out of me because it's so hook-filled it's almost radio-friendly! I
was relieved when they returned to their trademark heaviness on the
wall-thumping Bigot Overall, though, this record is a little more, shall
we say, uplifting than previous sludgy releases, especially on songs such as
Black Boned Angel and Body Dome Light. Even on such tunes
as Anything Is Mine and Empyreal, fine examples of
Godflesh's trademark
migrane-inducing sound, the vocals are much less distorted than on previous
albums, and the music, while still pulsated with industrial heaviness,
contains a bit more harmony to it. It's still music suitable for the
soundtrack of a snuff film, just in this one the serial killer smiles more
often as he merrily skins babies alive.
Selfless is yet another progression in the wide-ranging
career of Godflesh.
Although I still prefer the less-polished feel of their previous releases,
Selfless is still a great album, and I recommend it to anyone who's looking
for something to listen to while staving in their parents' skulls with a
hammer. Godflesh-always good music to listen to after
placidly slaughtering small villages.
Review From:
www.anus.com/metal
Production: Clear, roomy, controlled.
Review:
Slavestate extras and some extra tracks from the Pure
sessions, released and in the case of the latter reformed through
editing. The glories of this sixtrack offering are the two
Slavestate songs, Slateman and Wound '91,
and the classic Nihil from the later recording date.
Slateman is a harmonic sickness infecting your blood
and Wound calls to mind all of the empty, heartless, irrational
moments of life under the machine. Nihil is just bleak but
enlightened and free, the power of its emotion rising from its refusal
to even accept its own word. As in all
Godflesh material the work
reflects a sense of evolution toward purity, the wayward sons of
rotting earth attempting to cast their mechanical tormentors out of
their heads.
Review From:
Issue 25 of "huH" magazine, sep. 1996
Rating: (6/10) Slateman/Cold World
The duo of Justin Broadrick and Benny Green, collectively known as
Godflesh, have made it their life's
mission to wreak havoc on the
structures and boundaries of extreme music. But they're also notorious
for getting bored quickly and for continually re-inventing themselves.
Using a drum machine on their US debut (sic) Streetcleaner, they
single-handedly changed the definition of "grindcore"; they opted for a
danceable approach on the Slavestate EP, then battled through and
identity crisis with 1992's Pure amid a deluge of ambient-industrial
noise and percussive insanity. The perpetually antsy Broadrick is
quickly becoming a modern-day Igor Stravinksy, twisting and manipulating
tradition into a new reality without regard for criticism and public
reception. The compilation of the Slateman/Wound '91 and
Cold World EP's (both recorded in between
Slavestate and Pure) is a perfect chance to hear
Godflesh as Broadrick realizes his gift.
Surprisingly, the new Hate is the band's most emotionally
charged and accessible album. Such extreme, brutal, angst-ridden songs
as Wake and Kingdom Come are decidedly catchy, the result
of the duo's patented blend of their industrial grind with groove heavy,
and often danceable, rhythms and samples.
Review From:
Sonic Boom
Having been away from the grind core scene and
Godflesh in particular, I wasn't
sure what to expect on this new album. After a quick listen, it was obvious
that Justin had mellowed quite a bit from the days from the bygone days of
Pure. The same grinding guitar chords that Justin has made famous are used
throughout the entire album, but this time the overall mood of the entire album
is somber and morose. The electronics are almost used as much as they were on
Streetcleaner, albeit a little more cleaned up and better produced. The rest
of the album is fresh and totally unexpected. Industrial it is not, but
instead a bizare mix of morbidity and doom. I can't decide where exactly
Godflesh intends to go with this release, but
I'll tell you one thing, it's one
of the most innovative and new turn of events that a entrenched grind core band
has taken in years. So if you acquire a copy for yourself, keep an open mind,
and a staunch listening ear and be ready for slightly different, yet reticent
Godflesh.
Review From:
FPC
Rating: (5+ [out of 5])
If you don't pay attention to anything else on this page, listen:
you must own this CD. Heck, I think everyone should have every
Godflesh
CD, because they are all excellent. This CD is one of the reasons I
haven't updated in a while, I've been too busy listening to it (as
a matter of fact, I'm listening to it right now.) As
Godflesh fans
already know, this album has the addition of a new member, drummer
B. Mantia, who gives the album something many
Godflesh songs have lacked: a groove. I can't
compare this to any other Godflesh
release, because they're so multifaceted and good. The first two
songs, Wake and Sterile Prophet are very aggressive
sounding, almost like much of Streetcleaner. Circle of
Shit sounds almost like Pure's Spite except for
the fact that it is mostly rhythm and samples. The fourth track,
Hunter sounds quite a bit like Torture Technique/Hole
in the Ground era Sister Machine
Gun at first, with a funky drum pattern and a single guitar
played over it, until the bass kicks in, then
it begins sounding like characteristic Godflesh.
Gift of Heaven begins with heavy synths/guitar
feedback, before mutating into a
Godflesh/Helmet style rhythm. The sixth
track, Amoral is the only track I haven't played incessantly
for the past week, but it is still a very good song.
Angel Domain sounds similar to the first two tracks, very
aggressive, but it has more of a pop sound (don't worry, it still
sounds like Godflesh). Kingdom
Come is somewhat similar to Hunter with its guitar/hip-hop
sound. It has a guitar, hip-hop/synth, guitar pattern.
Time, Death and Wastefulness starts out disturbingly similar to an
annoying Aerosmith song
that MTV used to play too much (back when I watched MTV),
but it soon turns into a very heavy guitar song. Frail is
probably my favorite on the CD, combining
Godflesh's harsh guitars
with pop music elements (kinda like Don't Bring Me Flowers and
Slateman). It's one of those songs where Justin Broadrick
actually sings (not growling or yelling). When I heard the last
song, Almost Heaven all I could say was "sweet merciful crap, G.C.
Green tuned his damn bass! I'm still trying to figure out what's going
on at the beginning, it sounds almost like processed bagpipes or John
Zorn's saxophone. The song sounds kind of (get this) upbeat. Yep,
musically, the song sounds almost happy. All figured, you should own
this not because it's a Godflesh CD
but because it is a great CD (one of the best, if not the best I've
heard all year.)
Review From:
Dead Angel
(Issue #23)
Some reviews i've read of this are claiming this is the best thing
they've done since Streetcleaner. Not sure i agree with that,
but it's certainly the most Consistent. It's also the most
single-minded; judging from the lyric sheet (!), it appears that the
entire album is about how much Justin hates religion. Hmmmm. They
(Justin, Benny, and sometimes-live drummer B. Mantia (!!)) kick off the
jolliness with the imposing death-grind of Wake and never
really get any happier, heh. Some of the tracks, like Sterile
Prophet and Circle of Shit, lean heavily on the hip-hop tinky drum
thing, which is mildly annoying -- i like my drums monolithic,
dammit, i do not approve of tinky drums. I DO approve of Justin
screaming in severely bilous fashion, something he hasn't really done for a
while now. Ees kewl, seenyor. It all starts getting pretty primal, though,
with Hunter, where a messed-up beat combine with a surging hate guitar
groove to basically rock like a pee-dog.
What's interesting is that some of the weird, quasi-ambient stuff
they've been pursuing in Final has crept
into Godflesh now. Check out the
shrill ambient wash that builds to a roar at the beginning of Gift From
Heaven, for instance, or the SOLARIS-like ringing tones in
Amoral.
Then there's plenty of bass heaviness in Angel Domain, along with some
serious monolithic riffing... hmmm, maybe this IS the best thing
they've done since Streetcleaner after all. The best track is
Kingdom Come, with churning, slablike bass riffing and scary
ringing overtone guitar that sounds like a soundtrack to rioting in the
streets, yeep! Heavier than cows falling from a UFO tractor beam gone
haywire--step too close and you'll get beat down, just the way they like it...
The remaining tracks are plenty heavy in their own right, although
nowhere near as groove-laden. It's certainly reassuring to know their brief
major-label excursion didn't suck anything out of them.... Bonus points,
btw, for the tremendously hep inner photo (courtesy of controversial artist
Andres Serrano) of Broadrick being drenched in blood. This is offset,
however, by the considerably less-swank photo on the cover (which is
real, incidentally -- shot on location from the hillside in one
of New Orleans' finer stinkpits). I liked it better when their covers
were blurry and surreal. But then, they didn't ask for my opinion,
did they?
Review From:
Pillowfight
Somewhere between the over-wrought riffage of heavy metal and the stale
mechanism of post-industrial music, Godflesh
has carved out a niche of harsh, driving grooves, beats, and riffs
unmatched by any other purveyors of the same ground.
Somewhere between the rolling guitar-lava of Streetcleaner
and the twisted hip hop beats of Pure,
Justin K. Broadrick (guitar/vocals), Benny Green
(bass), and new recruit Brian Mantia (drums) found the soil from which to
cultivate Songs of Love and Hate. The same bone-crushing power
they've made
ever-so listenable in the past is still painfully evident, but this time
around the grooves are up front and inescapable. The addition of Mantia on
drums (as well as their usual machine-driven rhythms) gives
Godflesh an
organic feel that was all but missing on 1994's Selfless.
All things considered, Songs of Love and Hate fits easily
on the Godflesh
list of must-haves, and could just as easily be their best record yet. There
is indeed hope for the future.
Review From:
Ultra WWW magazine
2 reviews from the same site, the original, and then a counter
review from a later time.
Review #1
I thought Godflesh was
quite disappointing on the Rock Herk Festival last June.
But maybe this had to do with the sound problems and the
rain. Anyway: I expected the worst when I put Songs
of Love and Hate in my CD player. And maybe that was
exactly the reason why I think this album is actually
quite good! I'm not too keen on all this ultra heavy
guitar noise with the grunts and Dungeons and
Dragons;-thing, but then again
Godflesh
was never a noise band in the real sense of the word.
Their debut Streetcleaner was already danceable
stuff (as a matter of fact Kingdom Come is still
such a danceable song) which undoubtedly has influenced
Scorn.
Songs of Love and Hate is extremely heavy, almost
oppressive in its heavyness. It's as if a thousand
tons are resting on your breast. The fact that there is
not a real drummer in this music, but a drum machine,
doesn't make the music sound less heavy. When I hear Justin
Broadrick's guitar, I'd like to think that Tommy
Victor (of Prong) was
definitely influenced by this band. The guitar play
creates a very desolate atmosphere ("empty"; as
Broadrick screams in Hunter) and this might be
the music you can hear after the atom bomb has dropped. A
third World War symphony, you might call it. There's no
room for joy, but I still think there's a dark sense of
loss and romanticism in a song as Angel Domain.
This is not even industrial, but post-industrial music.
Time to put on my videos of Mad Max again. (bt) Review #2
By: TiffyBells@aol.com
Who ever reviewed
Godflesh's Songs of Love and Hate
doesn't have a clue about the music. For one thing this
is the first album with a drummer, the drummer was Brain
who has worked with Bill Laswell and is in
Primus. Also
the oppressive and bleak album was Streetcleaner which
was not a danceable album the dance oriented album is
Slavestate also Justin used to play in
Napalm Death with Mick Harris
of Scorn also Justin played
guitar on Scorn's first album
the only Scorn recording which
even remotely sounds anything like
Godflesh. As far as Tommy Victor, where on
earth did you ever get the idea that the two are even
remotely similar Tommy Victor's influence was the same as
Justin's it was the Swans and
other bands like that and
as for godflesh not being a noise band obviously you
haven't listened to justins half hour feedback jams at
their live shows or listened to the last track on just
about every album. you haven't the first clue about this
band so you shouldn't write about them I wonder how you
got this job in the first place
Review From:
FPC
Rating: (5/5)
The remix album...some say it is the ultimate indication that a
band/artist is milking their work for all it's got. Sometimes other
artists are able to give the original songs a new depth and direction
(like Scorn's Elipsis disc), while
others are just slight reinterpretations on tracks that were better
in the first place (like God's
Appeal to Human Greed...barring the excellent
Lumberjacks/New Kingdom remix). But
when a group remixes nearly a whole album
themselves, that's just a blatant attempt for money. But then again, not
every group is Godflesh, and they have
successfully broken this cliche. LaHiD is a collection of
self-made remixes from last year's monumental
Songs of Love and Hate.
As Godflesh fans could tell you,
this disc is finally when Justin Broadrick's sideprojects (especially
Techno Animal) and musical tastes
(like Wu-Tang Clan) began showing
through...the stiff Alesis drum machine was dumped in place of
hip-hop loops and a live
drummer (Brain, of Praxis and
Primus). LaHiD takes all but two
of the original tracks and remixes them (left out was the underwhelming
Amoral and sadly, the awesome Hunter). Circle of
Shit(To The Point Dub) strips the original of all its guitar,
adds a hip-hop sample loop, and leaves it with only a drum and bass
loop and vocals. Wake (Break Mix), originally the heaviest track
on SoLaH, is stripped down to just it's beat and vocals...not
really dubby, but still cool. Almost Heaven (Closer Mix) takes
on an entirely different drum style (very metallic sounding), the
guitar is processed, the vocals are slowed way down, and the track
is basically revamped. Gift from Heaven (Breakbeat) lives up
to its title: The track is stripped down to practically nothing but
an awesome breakbeat,
and G. C. Green's low, distorted bass. The only part of the vocals that
remains is Broadrick's growling "empty", and midway
through the track, some of the guitar is reintroduced. Frail (Now
Broken) is one of the more disappointing tracks. The original was one
of my personal favorites, and proved that
Godflesh could convey more
emotion than just anger, but the track is simply distorted, and some
different guitar parts are added. Sterile Prophet (Version) is
stripped of much of the original's guitar, and the heavy bass rhythm
track is mixed to the front. Almost Heaven (Helldub) says it all,
an almost noise level remix, sounding like, well, hell. Wouldn't have
sounded that out of place on
TA's Unmanned 12". Kingdom Come (
Version) is probably the closest
Godflesh will ever get to hip-hop...the
track features nearly nothing else but a drum loop (which was very
funky even in the original), some bass, and some sparse samples.
Time, Death, and Wastefulness (in Dub) is another that doesn't
stand out a whole lot, just stripped down of some guitar, and the
bass/beats are distorted. Sterile Prophet (in Dub) is some distorted
bass, odd echoed vocals, a somewhat spasmodic beat, and some really
strange effects. Domain isn't a great deal different than the
original, cleaner beats, and one odd thing, the song doesn't get heavier
at the chorus, it maintains
that more mellow sound that the original begins with. Very cool, and
different. The final track, Gift from Heaven (Heavenly) doesn't sound
the slightest bit like dub. It's the longest track (10+ minutes), but
sounds quite like Urge/Fail era Final
(which is very good). A bit of
the original's noise comes in, but a very interesting piece. Justin
Broadrick and G. C. Green have once again changed one of my perceptions
of music. They've proved that a self-made remix album is not just money
making self interest, but prove that an album of remixes by the
original musicians can be a very good thing.
Review by:
Gavin Toomey
"On first listening to the new remix album I thought the 'remixed'
tracks represented stripped down versions of the original tracks.
On repeated listening I've discovered a new texture to the songs.
The final Gift From Heaven (Heavenly) reaches depths reminiscent
of the 1994 Lull classic Cold
Summer. The track resonates with a
psychological intensity matching Pure. The breakbeat mix of the
same track begins with a funky old skool rhythm. As the track progresses
washes of guitar chorus plunge the track into three dimensional territory.
Layers of creative distortion form a clinical metallic edge to Almost
Heaven (Closer Mox), a grindcore/jungly noisefest. On Sterile
Prophet (in Dub) fx plunge the bassline into a pool of sonic mud
for headphone wallowing.
White noise and digital cutups mutate forms within the soundscape.
The opening Circle of Shit (To the Point Dub) blasts 'serious'
hip hop samples and breaks. Perhaps a bitter strike against the inbred and
regurgitated structure of current music trends, this track - and the remix of
Time, Death and Wastefuleness - blends the abstract operated e.q. twiddling
stylee of Justin and Alec Empire's
Mille Plateaux work with the classic
Godflesh bassline.
LaHiD internalises the emotions expressed in the original album.
Stepping away from the often impenetrable atom beats of
Techno Animal, this
album's energy is rooted in a constant power struggle between layers of anger
(distortion/breakbeats) and sensitivity (amp resonance/warm washes of sound).
Influential - yet mostly unrecognised - at the cutting edge of England's
music scene (the deformed drum & bass of Broadrick's
Ice track Skyscraper was heavily
sampled in Tricky's 1994 single
Aftermath. The recent vinyl Techno Animal
releases on the Chrome label have remained relatively seminal within
the experimental mashed beats/ambient market)
Godflesh stands alone with a unique blend of
layers/textures and imagery and a target audience that doesn't exist."
Review From:
Corridor of Cells
Rating: (9/10)
This is a collection of re-mixes of songs from
Godflesh's last
album Songs Of Love & Hate. The main focus of all the
remixes is on the beat, as the semi-hip-hop drums dominate
throughout this whole release. Justin Broadrick's guitar is
rarely heard, appearing very sparingly and usually just in the
background. The biggest star of this release is
Godflesh's bassist - his incredibly
distorted and heavy bass is pushed way,
way up in the mix, making this just as heavy as any other
Godflesh release (and understandably
so, also insanely bass-heavy). I haven't heard so much sludge
on one album since Swans's early recordings.
The abrasive percussion delivers a wide
array of beats, ranging from hip-hop, break-beat, jungle,
although of course in Justin Broadrick-style, meaning abrasive
and HEAVY! In many ways, this is the most experimental album that
this band has done since Slavestate. I don't recall
Godflesh
experimenting so much with keyboards & samples on any of
their recent releases. This is one of those rare remix albums
that contains versions of songs that are noticeably different
from their originals. A surprising and thoroughly successful
release from one of the best bands of the last decade. A must
buy.
Review From:
Phoenix Hawk's
page
Rating: (8.5/10)
Holy fucking shit. Just Broadrick is back to full form, possibly even
better than before... I have always held that there is _nothing_ more brutal
than a good Godflesh song (for the record,
I don't consider Merzbow/Aube etc.
"brutal," more like audible pain. It's a small but very important difference),
even the ambient ones (the wounded scraping of the last track on
Selfless, in
particular), and this beats out most of the other
Godflesh material. Leering,
lurching, stomping, menacing, all those adjectives I use way too much in my
reviews apply here... Except they really, really apply. Almost Heaven
(Helldub) makes Ed Rush, Nico, and that whole No-U-Turn techsteppin' "hey
look at us, we're dark and disturbed" crowd look like a bunch of
kindergartners with recorders, in fact, it even makes
Panacea (much props as
I give them for being the ones to show people what techstep _should_ sound
like) seem a bit tame... OK, maybe I'm overstepping a wee bit, because
Panacea is the bomb, but that track just blows
me away. Totally undanceable
breaks, bass so big it makes my chair shake (quite literally) and a feeling of
total paranoia and darkness that I really can't quite put a finger on but that
is utterly lacking in most bands that think they make "dark" music.
Everything I ever wanted techstep to be is embodied in that track, probably
one of the five or so best songs with breakbeats I've ever heard... if this
were the only good track on the album, it would be well worth the 15 bucks.
But the rest of it...
The rest of the album is not nearly as "technoish" for lack of a better
term: total fucking all out brutality is the word here, except with fucking
MONSTROUS hip-hop beats... like a wounded animal reeling out of control,
destroying everything around it...Totally inexplicable, and I guarantee
totally unlike anything you've ever heard. Also, I might add, fucking
amazing. If you have any interest in "dark" music of any kind, this will
fucking knock you off your chair. If you are among the misled few who think
No-U-Turn is the next big thing in jungle, I beg of you, listen to this. I'll
just watch as your head implodes.
Cold World:
Pure:
Merciless:
Crush My Soul:
Selfless: (#1)
Selfless: (#2)
Selfless: (#3)
Selfless: (#4)
Reviewed by:
Gabe Martinez Gollum
Slateman/Cold World:
Slateman/Cold World
Songs of Love and Hate:
Review By:
Vincent N. Cecolini
Rating: (7/10) SoLaH
Songs of Love and Hate: (#1)
Songs of Love and Hate: (#2)
Songs of Love and Hate: (#3)
Songs of Love and Hate: (#4)
Songs of Love and Hate: (#5 & 6)
Love and Hate in Dub: (#1)
Love and Hate in Dub: (#2)
Love and Hate in Dub: (#3)
Love and Hate in Dub: (#4)