Godflesh’s cantankerous, crushing twist on industrial metal reflects one of the genre’s most perfect partnerships.
Formed by the Birmingham, UK-based duo of vocalist-guitarist Justin K. Broadrick and bassist G.C. Green, Godflesh’s brutal sound complements the suffocating, gray-smoke-skied gloom of their hometown heritage. Heavy. Cyclical. Foreboding. Inescapable.
The pair first merged metal with tape loops in the mid Eighties with proto-project Fall of Because, though its the Godflesh catalog — from early EPs and 1989 debut LP Streetcleaner, and into their modern era — that became sacred to industrial devotees around the world.
We asked our readers to pick Broadrick and Green’s purest songs of love and hate, and they purged up the top 5 accordingly.
“I, Me, Mine”
Broadrick once lambasted Godflesh’s UK Jungle-infused Us and Them album as the sound of an “identity crisis,” an eclectic, ambitious and “technologically obsessed” misfire that sounded more like a remix project than a proper ‘Flesh LP. Our readers disagree with that self-criticism, because its opening “I, Me, Mine” is one of the all-timers for the fanbase.
Broadrick and Green frantically flip the famous “Amen” break from the jump, yet contrast that panicked, sped-up drum’n’bass staple with floaty guitar lines that ripple like silk curtains in the wind. It all makes for a tense and psychedelic display of Godflesh’s powers at their weirdest.
“Dead Head”
While the faux cymbals crash especially hard, and the bass distortion is filthier than a septic tank of extra-rank gray water, there’s likewise something unerringly gorgeous about the sound of Streencleaner-era bonus cut “Dead Head.”
Give credit to Broadrick’s mic work on the track, where he eschews the all-growl approach of the heaviest Godflesh material to instead deliver melodic, cloud-scouring ambient coos. While mega-fuzzed and in-the-red, the arrangement likewise sits in a sunnier major key.
This is all to say, while wildly melodic, “Dead Head” still slays.
“Crush My Soul”
Godflesh’s first single off 1994’s Selfless has still got us in our feels.
As the first Godflesh album to arrive during the Earache/Columbia Records partnership, the major label debut attempted to push Broadrick and Green into the mainstream. “Crush My Soul” is no compromise for the big show, however, with the faith-questioning bleakness of its lyrics and the relentless thrum of the arrangement swallowing listeners up in the intensity of the duo’s aural experience.
Nevertheless, it converted many to Godflesh’s heavy cause. Praise be.
“Christbait Rising”
The readers didn’t hold back when it came to Streetcleaner’s “Christbait Rising” — this one got a bunch of votes this week.
Another early stunner, “Christbait Rising” proved that Godflesh could be fierce and oddly funky at the same time. Aggressive guitar feedback squeals in and out of the piece, while G.C. Green levels his bass rhythm towards a teeth-shattering attack. The drum machine groove goes extra deep and hypnotic, while Broadrick’s slapback-stylized vocal batters between the speakers as if being backed by his own pissed-off hypeman.
It’s a hell of an outing, to say the least.
“Like Rats”
“You were dead from the beginning.”
A seething condemnation of breeder mentality, and perhaps life itself, it doesn’t get much more hopeless and nihilistic — or awe-inspiring — than Streetcleaner’s squealing, legacy-skewering “Like Rats.”
As one of the earliest displays of Godflesh’s “stylized deformity” — dark, direct guitar judding, mechanized drum menace and harrowed introspection — the song remains a defining moment in their catalog, as well as the industrial-metal genre as a whole.
Beloved by our readers, sampled by HEALTH, “Like Rats” continues to infest the minds of many, and refuses to fade out of memory.