Godflesh—Purge (2023)

Details

Published by Mute Song Ltd. All songs and production by Justin K Broadrick.

Released on Avalanche Recordings on Friday 9 June 2023.

Bandcamp | Encyclopaedia Metallum | Facebook | Website | Wikipedia | YouTube

Band

• Justin K Broadrick—Guitars, voice, machines
• BC Green—Bass
• Machines—Drums

Tracks

1. Nero
2. Land Lord
3. Army of non
4. Lazarus leper
5. Permission
6. The father
7. Mythology of self
8. You are the judge, the jury and the executioner

Review

Purge (2023) is the ninth studio album from industrial metal godfathers Godflesh, released six years after their last album, Post-Self (2017).

What can I say about Godflesh that has not been said before? Two working-class lads, brought up on housing estates in inner-city Birmingham in the English midlands. Their music echoed and reflected the decline of industrial Birmingham which began in the 1970s. It was bleak, it was cold and yet amidst the slow barrage of mechanical percussion (originally provided by among others, an Alesis HR-16 drum machine), overdriven bass, crunching guitars and distorted vocals, there was a deep insight into our humanity.

I first connected with Godflesh after seeing a friend wearing a Streetcleaner (1989) t-shirt in church. I got myself a copy of their second album (and t-shirt) and their self-titled debut, Godflesh (1988) and I was hooked. In my own dabblings with learning guitar, I would record as close to industrial-style sounds that I could (hammers and dot-matrix printers mostly, if I remember correctly) and play massive riffs over the top on a borrowed, unknown-label humbucker guitar plugged into a puny practice amp that had been turned up full and placed face down on a cushion to provide the biggest crunch that I could muster.

Streetcleaner (1989) became my go-to album for studying and later coding. It got me into ‘the zone’. It still does. But no other Godflesh album came close to that for me… until Purge (2023).

This album “revisits and updates the concepts explored on Pure (1992)”. Rhythmically mechanical, slow plodding beats, harsh guitars, protracted songs, and deliberate repetition, with dystopian and bleak lyrics cried from the soul. There is everything there that I love about Godflesh.

Conclusion

There is something quite meditative about Godflesh’s music. The repetition, the slow pace, the swirling overdriven feedback, the almost chanted vocals, the bass that hits you in the chest. This is powerful music that touches heart, soul and body. This music connects me to myself and to the world.

This album has immediately become my (admitted) second favourite Godflesh album, after the untoppable Streetcleaner (1989). Welcome back!

Review score: 100%