ALBUM REVIEW: Decay – Godflesh

Nothing lasts forever, everything decays, everything returns to dust. As industrial icons GODFLESH prepare to close the book on their long-running project they show no signs of slowing down or phoning it in on their penultimate release Decay.

While their American counterparts NINE INCH NAILS may have received more attention from the mainstream masses, Birmingham two-piece GODFLESH have arguably had just as huge an impact on the industrial metal world with their 1989 debut Streetcleaner still being held up as one of the genre’s defining albums. Now, after retiring from live performances due to frontman Justin Broadrick’s health, the duo get ready to say goodbye after close to forty years on their tenth and second-to-last album Decay.

Despite the band going through many different iterations over the decades, Decay feels unequivocally GODFLESH from the very first notes of the opening track. Decay is bookended by the album’s most ambitious tracks, starting with the almost nine minute long Master And Slave which mashes together sludgy, chugging guitars with deep ambience and a pulsing, puncturing electronic drum beat, while Broadrick’s vocals are less ravenous than in the early days his rasping screams fit in perfectly with this first track’s ominous, trudging sound. Although close to nine minutes of intense drones and repeating beats may be too much for the average listener GODFLESH manage to transcend Master And Slave from overwhelming noise to a whirling daydream of harsh sounds.

As the album strides onwards GODFLESH reveal plenty of bleak treats that are sure to delight long-time fans as well as a handful of songs that break from their tried and tested formula. Tracks like Living/Ending and Fodder are full of the same sharp snare hits and walls of droning distortion that the duo have made their trademark sound but Fear Of Man and Feral Colony take things in a funkier direction, taking more from GODFLESH’s dub inspired work as well as contemporary industrial rock and noughties nu-metal. Over the course of its six songs Decay manages to feel both classic GODFLESH and like an entirely new chapter for the band without alienating newcomers or fans of their older material.

While no strangers to ambitious runtimes, GODFLESH seem to revel in the stretched-out final track of Decay, giving every distorted note, lyric and sample plenty of space to breathe. Coming in at a little over eleven and a half minutes Consume Me offers Broadrick and Green plenty of room to wallow in the droning noise, adding layers of echoing reverberation to every repeated snare beat and snarled lyric over a backdrop of overdriven feedback before ramping up the tension in the second half with a steadily decomposing wall of ferocious noise. GODFLESH have confirmed that they’ve got one more album in the works but even if Consume Me was the end then this track would be a fitting finale to their decades of work.

There are few acts who’ve left as massive an impact on their genre as GODFLESH. Decay gives the industrial titans another opportunity to stamp their name in the history books after a lifetime of genre-defining albums. Everything decays but the mark GODFLESH have made in extreme music will last for generations.

Rating: 8/10

Decay is out now via Relapse Records. 

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