Long Live the Old Flesh

I hope that I don’t have to clarify what band it is that I have been listening to aimlessly which has made me so anxious that I no longer have nails to bite on but instead have considered ripping through the drywall of my room using nothing but my bleeding gums, yet I'm sure with the picture to the left you have already guessed who I am ranting about. GODFLESH should be considered the most underrated band in the world of heavy music. No one else but Justin Broadrick, NAPALM DEATH ca. 1984, could possibly concoct sludge, doom and drone as perfectly balanced as he and leave his fan base salivating for more. There should be no reason why GODFLESH isn’t missed in the mainstream except for the fact they never made it there. Burton of Fear Factory and Barney of NAPALM DEATH may share similar vocal patterns and tonality of industrial/drone front man, Justin Brodrick, but none made the listener feel so good for feeling like such shit. Pain, Horror, Depression and Nihilism have never before been compacted into a single source of sound until the carnation of Birmingham’s own GODFLESH, and as I type this post tonight I can’t help but remember the pleading screams and chants of Broadrick when one reminisces over the dissolution of the words, “BLACK RAIN FALL DOWN”. GODFLESH will and SHOULD be forever missed as the pioneers of drone metal and for the fact alone that Broadrick helped start Hydra Head records, which ended up signing bands such as Broadrick’s own Jesu, Pelican, Red Sparrows and Isis. Luckily for us, the band played their first show in over eight years at the Supersonic Festival on October 23 in Birmingham U.K. and have been confirmed for the 2011 Roadburn Festival in Tilburg Holland where the band is scheduled to perform their first album, Streetcleaner, in it's entirety. According to Decibel magazine when asked if fans could expect a new album from the band, Broadrick replied with "It's something we're discussing all the time, and I do have bits and pieces of material, but it's something we'd really like to develop. It'd be quite easy to knock out eight to 10 in-character songs and release it as quickly as possible to capitalize on the popularity of the group, but it would feel entirely wrong. If it's another two years until another GODFLESH record, so be it. The most important thing is making a record that stands up with the rest of the back catalogue. I do have this in me again, though." In the meantime I leave you with the song Tyrant from their latest album Hymns.