ALBUM REVIEW: Godflesh – Purge


 

Thirty-one years after the release of their sophomore Godflesh album Pure, Justin K Broadrick and Ben Green (and Machines) allude to this one aspect of the band’s crushing history with new album Purge, releasing on June 9th on Avalanche Recordings.

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Justin K. Broadrick (Godflesh) Releases a New Album via JK FLESH – “Sewer Bait”


 

Heavy music legend Justin K. Broadrick, best known for Godflesh, has surprised released a brand new album under his JK Flesh project – Sewer Bait, via label Pressure Records. The sixth album from JK Flesh, the project continues to explore eclectic, electric sounds. You can purchase and stream the album from Pressure Records below. Justin will perform at Damnation Festival this weekend with Godflesh, performing his classic Streetcleaner album in full, for the first time in the UK.

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ALBUM REVIEW: Black Magnet – Body Prophecy


Industrial metal — of a recognisably early 90s style — lives on in 2022 in the form of Body Prophecy (20 Buck Spin) by Oklahoma’s Black Magnet. Following up Hallucination Scene — the project’s debut album — this latest release arrives with more than a casual nod to Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Godflesh (from which Justin K. Broadrick even lends his mixing talents on the album’s closing track). Continue reading


Khost [Deconstructed and Reconstructed] by Godflesh – Needles Into The Ground


 

Khost Godflesh -Needles Into The Ground album cover ghostcultmag

Reviewing a release consisting largely of remixed tracks isn’t something we often do here at Ghost Cult but, when the sinister Industrial harshness of Birmingham UK’s Khost is given such treatment by Justin K. Broadrick, it’s imperative to sit up and take notice. Three tracks from last album Corrosive Shroud (Cold Spring Records) are utterly transformed by the Godflesh supremo and take the lion’s share of coruscating EP (Cold Spring Records).

The Nimoy-esque narrative of ‘Inversion’ is retained, whilst the horrific roars of Andy Swan are given a boost. The Drone-like pace of the original, however, is replaced by the metallic hammering and claustrophobic intensity of Broadrick’s outfit. Damian B’s rampaging, resonant bass is also more to the fore here, whilst the mixing work sees crushing pulses of noise duel with minute icicle drops of melody.

Broadrick’s intense reworking removes any element of softness and results in the near-destruction of the nervous system. The original eastern intonations of ‘A Shadow on the Wound’, so characteristic of the Khost sound, are reduced to mere blurred echoes as Swan’s terrifying, squalling riff and guttural delivery is enhanced. It’s a stark landscape, made miserable by the constant foreboding and scorched by oppressive rasps of electronica. ‘Revelations Vultures Jackals Wolves’, meanwhile, is given such an abrasive layering of scratches and pulses that the experience is physically painful: the hostility purely technical yet utterly crushing, and monstrous in its staccato, synthetic brutality.

It is something of a relief to reach new product ‘Deadsset’ which still carries that sampled undercurrent yet seems more easily digestible, without losing any of the febrile tension. A subtler assault on the senses it nevertheless unhinges sanity, a robotic snake steadily coiling around the organs and suffocating the life from them.

That this remains a Khost product despite being mercilessly separated from dominating elements of their personality is a testament to the immediacy and savage intensity of their music. Whether any of these versions can be considered as an improvement is open to conjecture, but it’s a regeneration that does no harm to the band’s growing reputation.

7.0/10.0

PAUL QUINN

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Godflesh Announce New Full-Length Album, Set UK Tour This Fall


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The worst kept, non-secret of the heavy music world this year was that Godflesh was going to release a new album in 2014, their first in 13 years. A World Lit Only By Fire is coming out on the bands own Avalanche Recordings label on October 6th. This highly anticipated album marks the full on collaborative return of industrial/post-metal pioneers Justin Broadrick and GC Green. The band plans a lot of touring behind this release, the first dates of which will be in the UK this December.

You can hear the preposterously heavy debut track ‘New Dark Ages’ on the Godflesh Soundcloud page:


On the strength of the powerful Decline and Fall EP, the fan base of the pioneers of several forms of music were offering us just a glimpse of what was to come on this new album from the sound of New Dark Ages. From our review of the Decline and Fall EP, Ghost Cult Magazine Senior Editor Ross Baker wrote:

Visceral, focussed and harrowing the eerie harmonies compliment the driving rhythms and wounded vocals. As bleak as anything the band has ever recorded with scant regard for any musical evolution other than their own, ‘Decline And Fall’ is a more than worthy taster for any upcoming full length for which expectations have now been raised even higher!”

 

Godflesh band

A World Lit Only By Fire Track List

1. New Dark Ages
2. Deadend
3. Shut Me Down
4. Life Giver Life Taker
5. Obeyed
6. Curse Us All
7. Carrion
8. Imperator
9. Towers of Emptiness
10. Forgive Our Fathers

A World Lit Only By Fire December Uk Tour Dates

Tue 09.12.14 The Haunt Brighton
Wed 10.12.14 Garage London
Thu 11.12.14 Rescue Rooms Nottingham
Fri 12.12.14 Sound Control Manchester
Sat 13.12.14 Art School Glasgow

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Godflesh – Loop: The Cockpit, Leeds, United Kingdom


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Justin Broadrick has always been a mover and shaker. Active in underground music with many projects from the Drum ‘N’ Bass assault of Techno Animal to Final’s ambient elect-drone, the Birmingham musician is a key underground figure whose influence can be felt from Fear Factory to Isis. Reforming in 2009 having played a smattering of shows but little more Broadrick has finally birthed a new four song EP from his most famous musical endeavour with the promise of more to come. Before the Brummie industrial icon can dish out the punishment it’s time for Alt rockers Loop to woo the audience with their droning riffs and throbbing bass. The venue is just over half full as but the band still receives a positive reaction with many shaking their bodies in time to the rhythm. Relying heavily on repetition you found yourself swaying in time to the soothing molasses of feedback. Hypnotic and alluring this trance inducing spectacle is fine for a kick off but nothing prepares you for the harrowing sounds of urban decay that follows.

The stark contrast between the terrifyingly bleak and nihilist sounds of Godflesh from Loop’s warm psyche could be felt by all in attendance. Justin Broadrick’s scowls intensely while thrashing at his guitar and bellowing like a wounded animal. The hour and ten minutes over which Godflesh inflict their scathing assault upon the bewildered crowd is as claustrophobic as is it compelling. The catacombs of The Cockpit cater for Godflesh’s Molotov cocktail of neurosis over grim industrial sounds.

 

godflesh ep cover

 

New number ‘Ringer’ is dished out early and gratefully received by a crowd many of whom probably felt they would never hear a new Godflesh track. Material from the newly released Decline and Fall EP is foul and depraved, harking back to their early material without being an exercise in hopeless nostalgia. ‘Like Rats’ and the bruising ‘Christbait Rising’ are dispatched with frightening efficiency sounding as vicious and life affirming as ever. Crushingly devoid of humanity save for Broadrick’s anguished tones, no intensity has been lost in the thirteen year absence between recorded works.

 

Godflesh Set List:

New Dark Ages

Ringer

Like Rats

Christbait Rising

Streetcleaner

Spite

Mothra

Monotremata

Bigot

Crush My Soul

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ROSS BAKER