Album Review- Godflesh- Streetcleaner

I've been listening to Birmingham legends (alongside Zeppelin, Sabbath, Priest, and... Duran Duran wut) Godflesh a lot lately. As gods of industrial and post-metal, you rally should get a sampling of their work down if you want to gain an interest in the music. While I'm waiting for the new album to come out, I've been listening to their other stuff a lot. While I considered giving a reapprasial to their previous record, 2001's Hymns, let's look at their first LP and arguably most iconic work, 1989's Streetcleaner.

It's weird that I have such an appreciation for industrial metal, since I'm not one for drum machines. Give me a real, honest to God drumbeat any day. Yet Godflesh masterminds Justion Broadrick and G.C. Green are very astute with their songwriting, and make the synthetic drumming come off as completely natural for them. While their own guitar work is fantastic in their own rights, the programming adds wonders to the music, coming in at exactly the right time and sweeping whenever the heavy music needs a lift. It's smart musicianship from beginning to end, and proves that the duo know what they're doing in terms of songwriting.

And oh, are Broadrick and Green excellent at what they do! I've been following Broadrick for a while in particular, primarily his work in the awesome band Jesu, and his guitar work is extremely rough and big, a perfect combination. He has Iommi chops, perfectly reflecting Broadrick's Birmingham roots, while also containing a bit of Robert Smith's hooks, which makes his work come off as a unique blend. There isn't much shredding, rather plenty of atmosphere to take its place, as it comes off perfectly from Broadrick.

Green meanwhile, doesn't relent on his bass work, and has an equally big sound that compliments Broadrick's tone quite well, and makes for some tight music. The whole album is bass heavy, a notion that becomes perfectly realized when sampling out Green's work, as he frets on miraculously. I've found isolated bass tracks of some of songs on here before, and it's a thing of beauty. Everything is in place, as the album works with just his work alone.

The back half also has guitar work from Paul Neville, a fellow artist from the scene who'd tour with the band and appear on their later Slavestate EP, and his work is a little more playful, but still heavy, which makes for a good mix on the album, helping to make the second half sound unique from the beginning. The general sound is consistent throughout, but there is a difference in guitar tone that makes repeat listens worthy.

Wow, this album just sounds so good. The production is as bleak as it needs to be, fitting the feelings of doom and dread reflected onto the music. There's a sense of filth present throughout the music, which fits with the title, a street that needs to be cleansed from the slime of today's society. Despite the lack of blast beats and grind riffs, the album remains heavy 25 years on from a sheer use of atmosphere on top of slow, creepy aggression. This is beyond essential for fans of metal music.

And I'll end my reflection with a link to the classic track "Pulp".