After previously teasing a summer release, Godflesh have detailed and set a street date for their upcoming Decay album. Comprising tracks recorded during the same sessions as 2023’s Purge, the industrial-metal duo’s next collection is being previewed with the hard-clanking, abrasively chugging “Living/Ending.”
A press release confirms that Decay will be the Birmingham, U.K.-bred outfit’s 10th and penultimate full-length statement. Guitarist-vocalist Justin K. Broadrick and bassist Ben Green had initially planned to put its six songs out a year after Purge, but label issues prevented these from coming out on time.
“It was one huge pool of songs,” Broadrick commented. “I picked what I felt was appropriate for what I wanted to achieve with Purge, with the intention of releasing the songs that didn’t fit as a new album within a year of Purge being released.
“Unfortunately, two years passed whilst considering external labels, so that I didn’t have to self-release Godflesh anymore, but it took an awful lot of time to establish a comfortable home for me. The recordings were done, but as usual for me, I did change a lot of stuff once I came back to it.”
While Broadrick explained that he continued to tweak the recordings in the intervening years, his giant growls were tracked ahead of a lifechanging hernia surgery. Earlier this year, he underwent abdominal surgery, and revealed that he was retiring from touring. He’s also scaled back his shouting voice because of the procedure.
“I was already aware that the Godflesh shout, so to speak, was exacerbating the hernia greatly, as was every Godflesh performance in the lead-up to the surgery once the hernia appeared, and the hernia was mostly caused by year upon year of shouting in Godflesh. The album was mixed post-surgery, and while I was still in some pain and considerable discomfort, but fortunately Godflesh is generally me expressing my pain, albeit [usually] mental, philosophical and existential, whereas this was physical pain.”
You can hear Broadrick channel some of that pain above the cyclical drum machine clank and rusted-razor riff hypnotism of “Living/Ending” via the player up above.
Decay will be delivered as a double LP September 25th via Relapse Records. That’d be the cover art and tracklisting down below. A pre-order for the album on white vinyl is up for sale in Revolver‘s shop.
As previously reported, a final Godflesh album has already been written, and it’s expected to be recorded later in 2026.
Decay tracklisting:
Master and Slave
Living/Ending
Feral Colony
Fear of Man
Fodder
Consume Me