Godflesh Reviews

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

Godflesh:

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Sure, this is probably worth more as a historical document, particularly considering the album that followed.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.



Cold World:

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.



Pure:

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.



Merciless:

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.



Crush My Soul:

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.



Selfless: (#1)

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!



Selfless: (#2)

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.



Selfless: (#3)

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.



Selfless: (#4)

Review From: Fish Rap Online (Issue 5.7)
Reviewed by: Gabe Martinez Gollum

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.



Slateman/Cold World:

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.



Slateman/Cold World
Songs of Love and Hate
:

Review From: Issue 25 of "huH" magazine, sep. 1996
Review By: Vincent N. Cecolini

Rating: (6/10) Slateman/Cold World
Rating: (7/10) SoLaH

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.



Songs of Love and Hate: (#1)

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.



Songs of Love and Hate: (#2)

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.)



Songs of Love and Hate: (#3)

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?



Songs of Love and Hate: (#4)

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.



Songs of Love and Hate: (#5 & 6)

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



Love and Hate in Dub: (#1)

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.



Love and Hate in Dub: (#2)

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."



Love and Hate in Dub: (#3)

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.



Love and Hate in Dub: (#4)

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.



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