Artist: Godflesh
Label:Earache Records
Release Date: 1992
Rating: 4 Skulls
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Title: Pure Artist: Godflesh Label:Earache Records Release Date: 1992 Rating: 4 Skulls |
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Requiem's Review:
Ah, how I love the Earache catalogue of the early 90's. Somehow, all that stuff manages to make it to the classics roster sooner or later. And it is my honor to be the first to include Godflesh to that list, a classic in every sense of the word. The question remains, which album? I've picked Pure simply because it was how I discovered the band, and therefore the first love bias reigns supreme. But not only that, I really do feel the band reached a pinnacle at this point, before slowly plundering down into less relevant material. Godflesh was a band that married industrial music with pure heaviness, quite possibly the heaviest we'd heard yet.Pure marks the point where the beats got dancier, and the riffs got heavier. Still present were the dissonant, distorted cries of Justin Broadrick's guitar, but finely tuned and played over beats that at times may have created the need to cut a little rug. They showed that simplistic guitar riffs and repetitious patterns were mesmerizing to the point of near coma. The dark vibe of it all opened up our minds to something refreshingly different. And the drum sound was just the icing on the cake. Very artificial, yet so appropriate. But just when you thought it was safe, the last track is a whopping 21 minutes of distorted ambience, which quite possibly gave birth to half the Release Records catalogue of noise lovers.
When I once thought NIN was the heaviest thing from this side of a dance beat, Godflesh came in and bridged the gap between metal and industrial scenes alike. Many bands would soon give their best shot at creating what Broadrick and Co. had mastered. This music was in their blood from birth, just waiting for the time to escape. Bands like Pitchshifter, Soulstorm and Crawl would soon follow, trying like hell to conquer the throne. But the innovators always seem to do it best. Godflesh pushed the boundaries of music and succeeded in creating an original sound that would soon send metalheads worldwide running for the nearest drum machine.
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