The Formative Years – Godflesh
I vividly remember when I was first introduced to the visceral sonic aggression that is being emitted once the needle hits Godflesh’s Streetcleaner debut album.
The way the album was mixed felt like a veritable wall of sound with the agitated, guttural growls and at times echoing vocals seamlessly blending in and becoming a mere enhancement of the instrumental onslaught.
Intentionally repetitive, stiff and artificial, the pounding rhythm section and drum machines are complemented by thudding bass lines and lingering, jagged and nuanced doom metal guitars to create an industrial alienating yet meditative foundation on which samples are projected, the grand total atmosphere of which results in something much more than what the mere sum of the individual components would suggest.
The rhythm based Streetcleaner took the essence of what was perceived to be industrial and noise music in 1989 from bands like Whitehouse and Throbbing Gristle and mixed it with influences from bands like Black Sabbath, Big Black, et cetera, to create a new lane that was a continuation of post-punk in that they furthered the sounds of bands like Killing Joke to the extreme.
Thirty-three years on, the haunting masterpiece that is Streetcleaner has stood the test of time and remains a ridiculously heavy, monumental album that inspired a myriad of epigones and still manages to evoke vivid, perception altering nightmares.
