It’s been 12 long years since the last Godflesh album. Not that JK Broadrick’s exactly been taking it easy or slipping into obscurity. This has hardly been a Stone Roses or Sisters of Mercy like hiatus. But while Broadrick seemed more than happy perusing his subsequent, less brutal, projects the occasional live performance always served as a reminder of just what an immense force Godflesh were, and what remarkable innovators they were in their field – and beyond. Broadrick’s solo album ‘Posthuman’ indicated that he hadn’t given up on brutal noise altogether, and in these bleak times of global war, ongoing economic turmoil and austerity, an endless tide of bad news and hardship, it seems fitting that Godflesh should return to provide the soundtrack to it all.
‘A World Lit Only By Fire’ is as desolate as its title suggests, and while later Godflesh releases extended into a broad range of different territories, here, Broadrick and Green focus on a straight down the line industrial attack and extend the assault resumed with the ‘Decline And Fall’ EP. No signs of mellowing here: this is as hard and heavy as it gets.
The bottom-heavy riffs hit like slabs of sheet metal wrapped around granite blocks the size of warships and bludgeon mercilessly against their trademark thudding percussion. Squalls of feedback occasionally shear loose of the moorings and Broadrick’s vocals, cut down to the barest enunciations of a few declarative syllables are low in the mix and encased in gnarly distortion.
‘Deadend’ has the brutally relentless weight of early Swans (a huge influence on Broadrick, by all accounts) only with a far more metallic edge. The result is a slow-paced sonic battering-ram of a song. Elsewhere, ‘Shut Me Down’ and ‘Curse Us All’ can only be described as vintage Godflesh. The former rages as hard as anything they’ve ever done, sinewy guitar strands spiral out from the endless grind of the chugging three-chord riff that powers through the heart of the track, while the latter’s abrasive thrash is a mechanical stomp that breaks into a riff-driven workout that pushes the band’s punkier leanings to the fore.
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Spindly, fractal New Wave guitar motifs interloop over a pounding rhythm on ‘Life Giver Life Taker’, while it’s the low end that dominates the overloading ‘Imperator’, and ‘Towers of Emptiness’ is simply terrifying. Anyone who thinks a band like Slipknot is heavy simply have no clue. As for the closer the seven-minute punishment that is ‘Forgive Our Fathers’, the chances are descending into hell would be breezy by comparison.
I doubt anyone listens to a Godflesh album for solace, and ‘A World Lit Only By Fire’ offers none. Its angry grey nihilism holds a mirror to your pain and anguish, your frustration and your pessimism. At their best, Godflesh always sounded like more than the sum of the parts, more than mere music. On returning, Godflesh have re-established themselves as the masters of industrial metal grind, and if ‘A World Lit Only by Fire’ often sounds like Godflesh, then that’s cause for celebration. The fact that at times ‘A World Lit Only by Fire’ transcends human endeavour is cause to rejoice indeed. This is no cash-in comeback, but an album that needed to be made. Essential.
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