SilentScream213 Godflesh remains one of those bands I just don’t “get.” Each song is more or less one rhythmic pattern repeated nonstop and a handful of boring, repetitive riffs. Back on their debut, at least this style was novel, though I liked it no more then than I do now. By Songs of Love and Hate, there were already a few other Industrial Metal bands offering a lot more than Godflesh, and I still fail to see the acclaim given here. Honestly, I actually dug this more on the first listen, not paying too much attention to it and enjoying the rhythmic aggression. Unfortunately, more focused listened revealed just how boring it is, with almost no memorable moments whatsoever.

That aside, there is one accolade I will give this album. The track Frail is legitimately good musically, it sounds quite different from the rest, with a bit more energy, melody and emotion.

I would love to see them explore more sounds like on their Cold World EP, or like the track Frail here, but alas…

Unitron I could ramble on about how much I love this album and how much it's helped me though my life, but I'll keep things concise. This is Godflesh's peak, screaming with the most emotion while also having the catchiest hooks. It's depressive in such an honest way, Broadrick's vocal performance screams all the feelings emoted by the music, and the atmosphere is drenched in lugubriousness. Brooding hip hop beats in Circle of Shit and Kingdom Come are both groovin' yet enhance the haunting atmosphere. It's probably the closest there's ever been to Illbient metal.

If you're just looking for noisy industrial, Streetcleaner is your album. However, if you love electronic and hip hop and want something that's really emotionally heavy, this and Us and Them are Godflesh's best. This can be either catharsis or simply a fantastic and infectiously catchy album.

SilentScream213 Sometimes when you listen to one of these acclaimed albums and don’t like them so much, you can still see what makes the album so great. You can recognize what other people see in it and write it off as just not being your thing. But sometimes, you might just be left mystified, wondering “What am I missing?”

Just before Streetcleaner, I had been listening to Peter Gabriel’s Passion, one of his most revered releases and a widely acclaimed New Age/World Music album. The album didn’t do anything for me, mostly because I’m not a fan of the style of music. However, I could still acknowledge the great compositions and brilliant atmospheres crafted in the soundscapes, and it was no mystery to me why it is so well liked.

Streetcleaner is a different case. I love metal. I love dark, misanthropic, heavy music. But listening to Streetcleaner, I struggle to find any appeal at all. The songs are all incredibly simple, and it sounds much less like a performance and much more like each member came up with one loop and just had it repeat for 5 minutes. There’s nothing innately wrong with this, but if you’re gonna repeat something for so long, at least make it good. The riffs are barely there; boring, slow, uninspired guitar that does little other than add a sludgy atmosphere, and ditto for the bass. The drum beats are equally boring and uninspired, and aside from some occasional addition of double bass, never do anything interesting. The vocals are sometimes there, and that’s all I can say about them.

The album is certainly dark, but the problem is that it is not active in achieving this. All the music is incredibly passive, and by that I mean there’s a lot of nothing going on aside from sounding heavy and dissonant, and it becomes the listener’s job to project any actual mood to it. The music doesn’t invoke anything on its own, but rather acts as a pool to collect such projected feelings. Unique at the time, and influential for everything that came after… but I’d say this is another case of influenced far surpassing the influencer.

BitterJalapeno Deep, dark and exceptionally moody, A WORLD LIT ONLY BY FIRE was the first GODFLESH album released in nearly 13 years after 2001s HYMNS. I get the impression that they were trying to record something of refreshed version of their first studio album STREETCLEANER which I think they did successfully. Call it a STREETCLEANER 2.0 if you will. It has the same relentless rumbling aggression, very low tuning and Broadrick's signature bark but with a fresher feel from the modern production. If you listen with headphones up full blast and close you eyes, you can practically see the fire mentioned in the album title (or maybe it just makes me think of the album cover of STREETCLEANER??)

Having said that, I would still put STREETCLEANER in front of this down to its originality at the time of its release even though the music itself has a less professional feel which is generally the case for most first releases anyway and certainly not always a bad thing.

One thing that lets A WORLD LIT ONLY BY FIRE down in my opinion is that it can feel that it drags on somewhat towards the end and on occasion, i do not make it quite to the end of the album. For this reason, I cannot give more than 3.5/5. Still a great album which I would recommend to anyone who likes their metal dark and bleak.

BitterJ

Warthur Industrial metal pioneers Godflesh advance their sound by incorporating influences from the very earliest phases of the industrial music subgenre, with pieces like Love, Hate (Slugbaiting) and Pure II at points drifting out of metal territory entirely into the sort of sickly, rotting from the inside musical landscapes first exposed to the world in the most disturbing works of Throbbing Gristle or Nurse With Wound. A rather transitional, experimental album, it isn't quite as immediately arresting as Streetcleaner, but it's a decent enough listen for industrial metal fans and suggests a band whose creative process is still very much alive and ongoing. Decent, but not something I see myself revisiting as often as its predecessor.