Godflesh revisited

[Conservationist]

I went back and re-listened to the discography of this band. I surprised myself by finding some things more refreshing, but others fell flat.

• Slavestate I remember being enthralled by the idea of techno/industrial/metal. Now I hear bad punk music with happy kickbeats and then a whole lot of pounding. It most resembles Techno Animal but neither has any life to it. If you like repetitive rhythm, great; otherwise, run like hell.
  
• Selfless I remember really liking this. When I turned it on again, I got bored by the half-ass attempt to be a heavier Ministry. The riffs are old, variations on stuff that was around when the blues were new, and the "soft songs" are like Jesu, a lot of emotion that goes nowhere. Too many one-chord/zero-dynamic motion riffs and too many songs are two-riff wonders, or worse, his new "dub" style of layer shit on top of a single riff.
  
• Merciless/Cold World I ended up liking these two EPs more than I thought, but they're pure atmosphere. No real development, just an impression of a mood. It's OK for use at some times but I don't think I'd sit down to listen to these specifically.
  
• Us and Them I don't remember anything about this. I guess I blocked it out: it totally sucks. It's all in the dub style, adapted to a verse/chorus structure, so you have lots of layers and strange breaks, but nothing that really sticks together. It sounds like some dude dicking around in MIDI, then adding enough organic sound to hide his tracks
  
• Streetcleaner I remember this being the best shit ever. It still is, except that the Tiny Tears EP sounds like the same kind of forced crap that Techno Animal, Head of David and later Godflesh became
  

[Umbrage]

I used to love Godflesh in the nineties, even the Pure and Songs Of Love And Hate albums. But in 2002 I got completely bored with them and didn't listen to them for about two years. Then I listened to them again and most of it immediately struck me as cheesy (particularly S.O.L.A.H and Slavestate, and I always thought Selfless was a bit boring anyway) The only album that stays good is Streetcleaner, it such a heavy album in all ways but it's also original, it's his best attempt at redefining heavy. The rest seems too image-conscious, too formulaic. So I got rid of the other Godflesh cd's I had. I think I still have two dubbed tapes (Pure and a compilation of EP's) but they're buried under a thick layer of dust by now.

Coincidentally Streetcleaner is one of the most enduring albums in my collection. The others being Altars Of Madness and the first few Slayer albums. Some stuff really never gets old. "Effortless..."

[aquarius]

Streetcleaner is easily his most effective album, it pretty much summerized the ideas of grindcore in a composition that was ambient/industrial in structure. Nothing has come close to this either from Godflesh or anyone else, the s/t is ok but nothing special.