ALBUM REVIEW: Fear Factory, "Aggression Continuum"

By: Richard Maw
 
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 18/06/2021
Label: Nuclear Blast

 
“Aggression Continuum” CD//DD//LP track listing:
 
1.  Recode
2.  Disruptor
3.  Aggression Continuum
4.  Purity
5.  Fuel Injected Suicide Machine
6.  Collapse
7.  Manufactured Hope
8.  Cognitive Dissonance
9.  Monolith
10.  End Of Line
 
The Review:
 
Back in the dark days of 1995, Fear Factory truly sounded like the future. “Demanufacture” was a monster of an album which featured a then-ground breaking mixture of harsh and clean vocals, pro-tools production and computer processed sounds, industrial tinges and some truly memorable songs. Cazares, Bell, Hererra and Olde-Wolbers seemed like it might be them who usurped Metallica with their science fiction, weaponised, mechanised version of heavy metal... except, things didn't work out like that.
 
The band followed up “Demanufacture” with very pale imitation albums, lost their place at the vanguard of metal via the rise of nu metal, line-up changes and the plain old bitter pill of missed opportunities. The tension and fractures within the band are well known so “Aggression Continuum” sees Burton C Bell appearing on the album and delivering a very good performance, but no longer a member of the band for the album's release. Completed by the very capable rhythm section of Tony Campos (bass) and Mike Heller (drums), this record HAD to be good.
 
The good news, though, is that the record is very good! The last FF album, “Genexus”, was also good and saw me regain interest in the band back in 2015 (is it that long?!). “Mechanize”, half a decade prior, was serviceable and of course lifted up a level by Gene Hoglan's involvement. The band have thus put out a couple of good albums over the last decade. I haven't heard “The Industrialist”- and I'm sure the band would understand my stance against human beings being replaced my (drum) machines. They still plough their futuristic furrow and bring to mind Robocop, 2000AD, Terminator and Terminator 2 with most tracks.
 
So, “Aggression Continuum” picks up where “Genexus” and, indeed, “Demanufacture” left off. It is pummelling (“Recode”), it's machine like. It has synths. It has solos (“Monolith” has a great one), it is inhumanly precise and has all the best hallmarks of what makes Fear Factory unique and a top tier metal band.
 
If you want aggression, there is plenty of it- “End of Line” is a relentless finisher and jam packed with the types of production quirks you expect from the band. “Fuel Injected Suicide Machine” sounds exactly like it could have been on “Demanufacture” and sit proudly with the likes of “H-K (Hunter Killer)”, albeit with a melodic chorus that echoes synth wave as much as metal. In fact, the synth wave genre or even sound-tracks (Carpenter et. al.) looms large here. Fear Factory have managed to conjure up the same bleak, robotic atmosphere and it is an aural delight.
 
Fear Factory have been writing about a dystopian future in which the population is tightly controlled and humanity is threatened by technology for decades now. It is sublime timing that this album should see the light of day when these things are happening more blatantly than ever before, and it seems that the band have captured the zeitgeist once again. Where they go from here is anyone's guess. Bell has gone, apparently never to return. It is a shame and a lamentable bookend to his time with the band- he IS the voice of Fear Factory and he and Cazares made some incredible music together.
 
“Aggression Continuum” is available HERE 

Band info: Official

REVIEW: Lament Cityscape, "The New Wet"

By: Peter Morsellino

Album Type: EP

Date Released: 31/01/2020

Label: Independent

“The New Wet” track listing:

1). Running Out of Decay

2). Seepage

3). Borer

The Review:

Lament Cityscape return with a darkly beautiful album of sludged down industrial wonders.  “The New Wet” turns the world of noise on its head and offers up some sexy goth jams that you will find yourself bobbing along to for days to come.

Lament Cityscape offer up a sound that will surely draw comparisons to classic Nine Inch Nails, there is a lot more going on here.  While the dance grooves of “Pretty Hate Machine” are certainly present throughout this release, the real star of the show is a filthy grit that shrouds itself over the music. The heavier grooves are muddied into mind warping grind. More traditionally beautiful melodies are cast in shrouds of fog, obscuring any pleasantries they may have to offer.

Album opener “Running Out of Decay” is appropriately named. This is a grimy industrial track, dripping in sludge. The beat pounds insistently, before dropping away to a pleasing piano melody dripping in that same grit.

“Seepage” walks a very fine line between a sexy industrial groove and a full on thrashing metal tune. Styles are mixed fluidly here, creating a piece that is just as welcome on the dancefloor as the mosh pit.

“Borer” is a noisy dirge, not letting off on the power accumulated up to this point.  The imagery of a sermon called up by the track is inescapable.  It draws on into a cacophonous delight, caked with filth, that shows no signs of stopping until a melodic atmosphere takes over to bring the album to a close.

“The New Wet” is a guaranteed hit for fans of Nine Inch Nails or How to Destroy Angels. It will also be a welcome addition to anyone looking for a more adventurous take on sludge's musical rotation. It's a very unique sound, and one I think you'll enjoy.

“The New Wet” is available HERE

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

REVIEW: God Root & Manikineter, "“The Dirt Will Reclaim All It Has Lost”

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: Split 
Date Released: 01/06/2019
Label: Independent

"The Dirt Will Reclaim All It Has Lost" CS//DD track listing

1). God Root, Decay is a Womb

2). God Root, Where Life Springs Forth

3). Manikineter, We Don’t Remember Asking

4). Manikineter, Shoot the Chalice (Re-Mixed)

The Review:

Writing about metal, especially the “extreme” spectrum of metal, you don’t necessarily get to reflect on melodic beauty. I’d probably cringe if I had to look at a diagram of how often I remark on the brutality, the malevolence, the dissonance and filthy tones of the releases I get sucked into.  But the most effective moments of tension, for me at least, is hearing a group of capable musicians show off their melodic prowess and then break it into a million writhing pieces.  Maybe that’s what’s drawn me to God Root since their self-titled debut; maybe that’s what has me more excited for what they WILL be doing with each new release. It’s definitely what has me hooked on their latest, long awaited follow-up to “Salt and Rot”.  With fellow Philly cross-genre mastermind Manikineter, God Root explore the beauty in physical corruption on “The Dirt Will Reclaim All It Has Lost” by fusing harmonic vocals and harsh noise, soaring leads and thrashing low end, offering a glimpse of a band that’s thoroughly progressive but undeniably catchy.

The main course here is “Decay is a Womb”, a nine-minute opus that opens with thoroughly monastic, multi-part harmonies, crackling minor key guitar chords, and pulsing, tribal drumming.  The extreme low end vocals, which directly nod to Tuvan throat singing, are beautifully countered by the vocal triad of Joe Hues (guitar), Ross Bradley (bass) and Fred Grabosky, before the shrill noise acrobatics of Jordan Stiff and dual guitar lines of Hues and Kieth Riecke kick in.  There’s some subtle industrial crunch running through the sludge but the rhythm is never stiff.  It manages to pulsate with the biological metaphors at play.  With an intensity that vacillates between agony and jubilation, the nameless narrator intones: “I yield to the heat of decay / Rebirth between the black astral plane / In loam, a time lapse churns my body back to the earth / Swallow me. Rip me away”. It never get back to the delicacy of the opening, but the melody coursing through the song makes the furious eruption of instrumental noise and wordless screams at the end that much more gratifying.

The instrumental “bonus track” of the digital download, “Where Life Springs Forth” is an interesting ambient palate cleanser.  After the life/death/decay/rebirth themes of the first track, the synth-electronic soundscape had me thinking about Godflesh at Justin Broadrick’s most industrial moments and Eraserhead sets blasted by radiation.  This echoey nightmare doesn’t seem to evoke any humanity, or any life whatsoever.  This extended transition is a perfect bridge to Manikineter’s post-apocalyptic avant garde noise wizardry.

“We Don’t Remember Asking” opens as a near inverse of “Decay is a Womb” – a single voice intones a chant, but this isn’t the unifying uplift of “Decay” – this is quavering, extended, looping into inhuman manipulations while an intensely distorted voice rambles under layers of static.  The voice crackles on for minutes at a time, a ghost in the machine, until it’s buried under layers of synth and drum machines.  Synth bass and sparse drum machine fills emerge from the background before Carl Kavorkian’s lyrics flow out like missives from a numbers station.  With the mechanized, steady pattern of his words, it almost feels safely repetitive until a shrieking voice breaks out, describing horrific surreal images: “Despot’s Chest poked, brain in sight thru nose” really stuck with me in a viscerally unsettling way.

Manikineter’s bonus track here, “Shoot the Chalice (Re-Mixed)” is a deeply distressing noise nightmare.  If God Root’s purely instrumental track toyed with post-humanism, this is a straight out antinatalist dirge.  If there’s anything vaguely biological here, it’s the buzzing of carrion flies, the shrieks of metal and machinery that evokes pure agony, the endless looping of synthesized screams forever and ever amen.  This is advanced level noise mastery here with occasional glowing notes thrown in above the miasma.  True disciples of auditory pain will love this – others may be left cradling their precious eardrums.

As a whole, “The Dirt Will Reclaim All It Has Lost” functions how the best splits always do – it pulled me in with one thing I love and introduced me to something else I’d love to learn more about.  The fact that it does so in a cross-genre way is even more exciting and, frankly, something more “EXTREME METAL” bands should consider.  The palettes of so many seemingly disparate scenes are cross pollinating and colliding in ways that go far beyond the simplified “rap meets metal!” cover stories that flooded Hit Parader and a million other shitty magazines that littered my floor as a seventh grader.  Instead, we have two really interesting, important underground musicians on the cusp of even bigger things, both ruminating on themes of decay, loss, death, and chaos.  The fact that I want to see the ways they intersect and diverge beyond this record means I can only see this brief experiment as an unmitigated success.

“The Dirt Will Reclaim All It Has Lost” is available HERE

Band info: godroot.bandcamp || facebook.godroot || manikineter.bandcamp || facebook.manikineter

ALBUM REVIEW: Author & Punisher, "Beastland"

By: Elliot Paisley


Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 05/10/2018

Label: Relapse Records

The savagery does not dilute in the presence of melody, and instead, it complements the moments of pure mayhem that are indeed present throughout.

“Beastland” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. Pharmacide
2. Nihil Strength
3. Ode to Bedlam
4. The Speaker is Systematically Blown

5. Nazarene
6. Apparition
7. Night Terror
8. Beastland

The Review:

There is no artist in the world quite like Author & Punisher. One may accuse such a statement of hyperbole or ignorance, but when one analyses the character of the man and the nature of his work, it is clear such art is being made without relevant precedent. Aesthetically there is influence from Godflesh, Nine Inch Nails and Throbbing Gristle, but even those bands feel entirely distant from what Stone is producing. While the project can be loosely defined as a ‘one-man industrial doom metal band’, when one discovers the story behind it and the music being produced, this feels woefully lacking.

Tristan Stone, the brainchild ofA&P , is not just a musician, but also a mechanical engineer. This may sound like unnecessary trivia, but it is important to bear in mind when listening to this album. The majority of the instrumentation and controllers he uses, affectionally labeled "Dub Machines" and "Drone Machines", are designed and constructed by Shone from raw materials and electronic circuitry. This level of individualism scares off pretenders, who are simply incapable of recreating it. His live performances employ the same tools, and visually it barelen resembles a musical recital.

“Beastland” is his 6th studio album, but it was only on his album “Melk En Honing” when the music world at large appeared to finally take notice. While it is evident that the metal community has been far more welcoming of Author & Punisher than experimental music circles, he is just at home in both. A guest appearance on Cattle Decapitation’s 2015 effort “The Anthropocene Extinction” endeared him and signing to Phil Anselmo’s Housecore Records endeared him further to metal fans, to the point where Relapse Records took notice and employed him on their roster 2 years ago. Following up “Melk En Honing” was no easy task, and many feared that A&P, like their influences, was doomed to fall into repetition and not explore the necessary frontiers

However, on this album, perhaps with the confidence that comes with the backing of a cult fanbase, Author & Punisher has strode into even more experimental territory. This is the most wildly diverse album he’s released thus far, and for that reason, it is also his finest achievement. Music of this nature can wear on one’s psyche upon repeated, unrelenting listens. However, “Beastland”, with its refreshing experimentation and unwillingness to compromise, cures this ill. While there are plenty of ‘home comforts’ (for lack of a better term) present here, with such songs as “Pharmacide”, “Nihil Strength” and “Night Terror” providing the unrelenting, atonal bludgeoning fans have grown so dependent on, A&P remains unafraid to explore new horizons. “Apparition” and “The System Has Systematically Blown” sees Stone channelling his inner Trent Reznor, as his will for arcane melody bleeds through to the surface. This is the closest they have come to replicating the style of another band, and it would possibly prove problematic to fans, was it not done to such a marvellous standard. The savagery does not dilute in the presence of melody, and instead, it complements the moments of pure mayhem that are indeed present throughout.


This album is also the most complete work in his discography: never before has he released a collection as all-encompassing with as an impressive a scope as here. From the opening crushing moments of “Pharmacide”, likely to liquidize your teeth if listened to at too unforgiving a volume, to the closing moments of the title track, an angular and alluring finale, the album drags you through a merciless nightmare, meticulously engineered by Stone. In the past, he has shown promise of such accomplished creativity, but all his past works pale in comparison to what has been done here.

Author & Punisher remain one of the most exciting acts in underground music, and it is only a matter of time before the world at large acknowledges the importance of his work. Whether it be in our lifetime or simply in the coming years, let it be known that Tristan Stone will receive the praise he deserves beyond his existing community, and “Beastland” is all the proof necessary.

“Beastland” is available HERE

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Uniform & The Body, "Mental Wounds Not Healing"

By: Dominic Walsh

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 08/06/2018

Label: Sacred Bones Records

Mental Wounds Not Healing” is a phenomenally heavy 27 minutes of music. Throughout the seven tracks, there are some extremely harsh vocals, mountainous droning guitar riffs and glitchy distorted beats.  This record is well worth your time if you like having your boundaries of music tested.

“Mental Wounds Not Healing” DD//LP track listing:

1). Dead River

2). The Curse of Eternal Life

3). Come and See

4). The Boy With Death in His Eyes

5). In My Skin

6). We Have Always Lived in the Castle

7). Empty Comforts

The Review:

With a title taken from an Ozzy Osbourne lyric (“Crazy Train”), Uniform and The Body have joined forces for a collaboration that pushes both bands far beyond their roots in industrial music and metal - creating an immersive listening experience that truly transcends genre. 

“Mental Wounds Not Healing” is a phenomenally heavy 27 minutes of music. Throughout the seven tracks, there are some extremely harsh vocals, mountainous droning guitar riffs and glitchy distorted beats. Think NIN, Einstürzende Neubauten, Sunn 0))) and bits of Ministry mixed together with Pharmakon and Blanck Mass. It’s a complete maelstrom of industrial noise throughout.

Most of the song titles are culled from horror literature and cinema. “The Boy With Death In His eyes” is a particular highlight at the midpoint of the album. The beat is more orthodox, and the distorted synthesizers and guitars that accompany the beat create a dark, tension filled backdrop to the despairing vocals.

“In My Skin” contains a particularly unnerving screaming sound throughout the entire track, but the track also contains one of the most notable guitar melodies that spins its web around more twisted and distorted noise. As you disappear down the hole of this track, the ending of the track feels almost serene against many other parts of the song, but don’t be fooled into thinking this is full of lush melodies! “Dead River” also has the same screaming motif that runs throughout the track. It takes you wonderfully out of your comfort zone.

“We Have Always Lived in a Castle” is pure drone. “Empty Comforts” and “The Curse of Eternal Life” are the most NIN style moments on the album as the electronic beats are clear and punchy, but the former really lacks any kind of recognisable rhythm; like a heartbeat with no real idea of what it is doing. The guitars again convene towards the end of “Empty Comforts” to show that this collaboration is not simply about making a glorious racket; there is melody rooted deep within this album – you just have to have the endurance to stick around to find it. “Mental Wounds Not Healing” is well worth your time if you like having your boundaries of music tested.

“Mental Wounds Not Healing” is available here

Band info: facebook || facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Barst, "The Endeavour"

By: Victor Van Ommen

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 18/05/2018

Label: Consouling Sounds

‘The Endeavour” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. The Endeavour

The Review:

Boy! Barst has done it again. On their 2016 outing, “Western Lands,” Barst yielded stunning results when they combined post metal aggression with claustrophobic psychedelia. This Friday, Barst is going to hit the scene with a new offering, “The Endeavour.” In doing so, this Belgian band is taking their sound to unexplored territories.

“The Endeavour” is presented as one, 42 minute song. Whether “The Endeavour” actually is one, single song is up for debate. I’d go so far as to say the album is three of four movements, all tied together by way of smooth transitions. But presentation counts for a lot, and if Barst wants us to take this album in as one song, then that’s what we’ll do. Either way, the band implores the listener to give the music full and undivided attention.

As far as genre is concerned, “The Endeavour” is hard to pin down. There’s definitely a dark element to the music, and it’s heavy in its own way. Is it metal? Yeah. Industrial? Check. Psychedelic? No doubt. Heavy doom? Uh-huh. And those are just a few of the genres that Barst brings to the table.

Throughout, the guitars are laden with a variety of distortion effects. None of the guitars are ever overpowering, but they sure do set the mood. So there’s still a subtlety in the music that holds the band back from diving head first into mindless riffing. “The Endeavour” continues its foray into the unknown by introducing programmed percussion and other electronics, giving way to a rather palpable industrial influence. Sometimes an Ufomammut tint springs to mind and at other times the music gets psychedelic enough to wonder if it’s still Barst that we’re listening to.

Then there’s the emotional palette that Barst paints from. It’s probably even more varied than the musical palette. Barst spends these 42 minutes intently dipping their proverbial paintbrush in the darkest of blacks as well as the brightest of colors. The resulting painting is one that grabs attention of both its somber tone as well as its shades of hope and elation.

Despite the sprawling nature of the music on “The Endeavour,” the album is still a very concise listen. Barst’s plan of attack is based on a clear vision, so much so that every note and chord and melody played is as intentional as the last. Barst’s vision is so sound that they don’t get caught up in themselves, but instead are able to translate what was in their mind to a recorded format without coming across as self-indulgent.

“The Endeavour” is available digitally, on CD and LP here

Band info: facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Ministry, "AmeriKKKant"

By: John Reppion

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 09/03/2018

Label: Nuclear Blast Records

“AmeriKKKant” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. I Know Words
2. Twilight Zone
3. Victims of a Clown
4. TV5/4Chan
5. We’re Tired of It
6. Wargasm
7. Antifa
8. Game Over
9. AmeriKKKa

The Review:

“This isn’t the future we were promised. They said there’d be jet-packs, and flying cars, and hover-skateboards, and self tying shoe-laces, and, and, and…” Yes, the films, and the TV shows all lied. As it turns out, our timeline is less Back to the Future II, more Orwell’s 1984. You know who, in a weird way, seems to have known exactly what the 21^st Century would be all about, though? Al Jourgenson and Ministry, that’s who.

Ever since their 1992 anthem “N.W.O.” sampled the then president, George H. W. Bush, Ministry have been pedalling an anti-authoritarian, anti-right-wing American message. And ever since “N.W.O.”, they’ve been hacking up the words of US presidents, and incorporating them into their patented brand of drink and drug fuelled industrial-metal. This approach culminated in the band’s early 2000s anti-Bush (junior) trilogy of albums: “Houses of the Molé” (2004), “Rio Grande Blood” (2006), and “The Last Sucker” (2007). Ministry officially split in 2008, but continued to release re-mixed and previous recorded material fairly steadily. Then Uncle Al came back with all new material for 2012’s “Relapse”, which was soon followed up with a definitely, absolutely, unequivocally, final album (their thirteenth studio album, in case you were wondering) entitled “From Beer to Eternity” in 2013. And that was Ministry done. Over. Dead.

Then, on the ninth of November 2016 it was announced, much to the amazement of many, many people in the world that Donald J. Trump was going to be the next president of the United States of America. Trump the king of the idiotic sound-bite. Trump the liar; the “lets’ build a wall around Mexico and make them pay for it” guy; the ex-reality TV star; Trump the alt-right’s leader of choice.  Had Al Jourgenson somehow tragically lost his life post 2013, I feel there’s a genuine chance Trump’s presidency would have resurrected him. His deadlocked, leather-clad corpse clawing its way through the earth, bursting forth from the grave screaming “GET ME TO THE FUCKIN’ STUDIO, NOW!”. 

“AmeriKKKant” is the album that brought Ministry back from the dead. Again.

Trump’s infamous words “we will make America great again” – suitably warped and fucked with – are the first thing we hear on opening track “I Know Words”: the ominous, middle eastern influenced, instrumental (save for all the Trump samples) introduction to the album. “Twilight Zone” is a weighty, plodding industri-stomp, very much in the “Scarecrow” mould. It too, features plenty of Trump samples, and a good dollop of that harmonica which crops up in more Ministry tracks than you remember.

When the bass comes in on “Victims of a Clown”, you could be forgiven for thinking you were listening to something off of 1989’s “The Mind is a Terrible thing to Taste”. This is very much classic Ministry, with the scratching of new member, turntablist DJ Swamp, the only real indicator that this isn’t some lost pre 90s off-cut.

Eight minutes(!) or so in, we get a final blast of the higher BMP industri-thrash stuff more associated with latter Ministry (and with much of the output of Al’s most recent side-project Surgical Meth Machine). That Burton C. Bell fella out of Fear Factory (remember them?) growls “Hey! What he say? Vomiting conspiracies. God damn the racist blind. Anti social impotence ignites”.

“TV 5-4 Chan” continues the tradition of short, sharp, “TV” titled tracks which have graced their albums since the early 90s. This time guns, racism, and white nationalist are the targets. It segues into “We’re Tired of It” which is an up-tempo thrash diatribe against “Fucking insane Christian Hypocrisy”, with Bell on vocals once again. “Wargasm” is more very classic sounding Ministry, with a chorus reminiscent of 1996’s “The Fall”. Samples talking about “the people’s war” and “the mother of all bombs”… you get the idea. “Antifa” is a chug-along anti-fascist anthem “Brown shirt little snowflakes never want to admit, Terrified of the red and black flag, Antifa's the shit”. Enough said. Oh, you want to know which old Ministry song it sounds like? A bit like “Just One Fix”, I suppose.

Closers “Game Over”, and title track “AmeriKKKant”, are a pair of mid-paced, somewhat more reflective songs. The rage of earlier tracks turned to despair at the inevitability of  just how fucked we, America, and the world as a whole actually are. There is a nice brass section in “AmeriKKKant” to offset that slightly, though. “It's like the Nazis back in '39, Like the Romans on the verge of decline. Like the Russians back in '68, How is this supposed to make America great?”

Jourgenson has referred to “AmeriKKKant” in recent interviews as “Pink Floyd on meth”. Yes, it’s a concept album, and yes several of the tracks do have rather excessive running times, but ultimately this is a Ministry album. I’m not going to say “just” a Ministry album, because that would be doing Al and company a disservice, but it’s 100% a Ministry album. Have you heard previous Ministry albums and enjoyed them? Good, then this is another one of those. Yes, some will argue that not much has changed musically in the Ministry camp for some twenty-odd years, but what’s even weirder is to think that US politics has somehow become more regressive in that time. If it feels like you’ve heard this all before, then maybe that’s just because Al Jourgenson has been right all along.

“AmeriKKKant” is available here

Band info: facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Godflesh - "Post Self"

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: Full-length

Date Released: 17/11/2017

Label: Avalanche Recordings

It may be a disturbing, challenging last will and testament of humanity’s futurist hopes and dreams, but “Post Self” is an invigorating, complex, and honest piece of industrial metal.  Perhaps most importantly, in a genre that can be glutted with repetitive speed metal riffs and samples of shouting despots, Godflesh stands as one of the smartest bands working today.

“Post Self” CD//DD//LP track listing

1). Post Self

2). Parasite

3). No Body

4). Mirror of Finite Light

5). Be God

6). The Cyclic End

7). Pre Self

8). Mortality Sorrow

9). In Your Shadow

10). The Infinite End

The Review:

               

Crack into any futurist, or hell, even a Neil DeGrasse Tyson wiki-hole, and all sorts of wild speculative bullshit will have you thinking we’re on the cusp of some magical utopia – a paradigm shift, or line of code, or thinkfluential bleeding edge app from unlocking the Jetsons vision of tomorrow.  The transhumanist vision of Ray Kurzweil, the cult of revelatory Singularity, is just the latest, scientific positivist take on apocalyptic rapture snake oil.  With the right tech, the right drive, the right “difficult geniuses” at the helm, we’re all going to beat death and toil and everything desperate and mind-numbing about modern life and finally have the time to bask in our uploaded consciousness for all eternity.  Nevermind the endless sequence of fuckups modernity seems to display – the relentless argument AGAINST letting mankind extend its petty bullshit ad infinitum.  If any band were to write the soundtrack for humanity’s defeat at the inexorable reality of death, it’s Godflesh.  And with “Post Self”, their eighth album, and second since reforming in 2010, Justin Broadrick and G.C. Green have crafted a distinctly industrial, metallic slab of nihilistic dread.  A haunting eulogy for a species intent on extinguishing all its potential in a solipsistic pursuit of immortality.

               

From the highly processed guitar crunch, to the inverted disco backbeat, the opening title track sets the stage for a Godflesh album that lurks in the niches of queasy anxieties.  There are few fully rocking industrial metal moments in “Post Self”, and that decision seems to be a conscious one – Broadrick and Green acknowledged they hewed closer to a foundation of early industrial and post-punk, and the ties to Throbbing Gristle, Public Image Ltd. and Einsturzende Neubauten are, perhaps, more distinct than they’ve ever been.  On a heavily dissonant track like “Parasite”, the wheedling guitar lead sounds so contrary, so confrontational, so “anti-hook” that it can’t possibly be “rocking”.  The doomy “Be God”, with vocals so processed that they sound like an entirely inhuman language, is remarkably underscored by a dreampop guitar coda, with defiantly beautiful tones that ebb and flow like an ocean of battery acid.  The shoegaze sound bleeds into “The Cyclic End”.  The clean vocals are a welcome respite in the warped hellscape of Godflesh’s “Post Self” – but of course the sweetness has to curdle by the finale.

               

“Pre Self” opens with one of the most harrowing guitar licks I’ve ever heard.  A solitary, echoing clang set against an ambient background, Broadrick adds a simple beat and clean vocal litany that, as I listened looking out across the polluted industrial skyline of Newark, was as depressing as a Lars Von Trier marathon.  This amplification of loneliness runs through the album, but is sometimes obscured by soundscapes or effects.  The deranged surf guitar of “In Your Shadow”, or the psychedelic tones of “Mortality Sorrow” can sometimes sideline the hopelessness at “Post Self’s” core.  But with the restrained synthetic strings of “The Infinite End”, the message is clear: this is a requiem mass for a humanity already doomed.  The sparks of soul or individuality within the ten preceding tracks are ghosts in a machine – corrupted, decayed remnants of mankind.  The Singularity is a pipe dream – we have already encoded ourselves into our digital tombstones, and after we leave a used husk of a planet, these vague, screeching entreaties for meaning and salvation will remain.  It may be a disturbing, challenging last will and testament of humanity’s futurist hopes and dreams, but “Post Self” is an invigorating, complex, and honest piece of industrial metal.  Perhaps most importantly, in a genre that can be glutted with repetitive speed metal riffs and samples of shouting despots, Godflesh stands as one of the smartest bands working today.  If they can look to their past and still offer an album so prescient and confrontational, there are a few things we can still be optimistic about in 2018.

“Post Self” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook