Industrial metal pioneers GODFLESH are back with their seventh studio album, A World Lit By Fire. The album (which guitarist, singer and onetime NAPALM DEATH shredder Justin Broadrick is self releasing through his Avalanche imprint) is their first full-length in 13 years, although Broadrick has kept busy with tons of projects including TECHNO ANIMAL, FINAL and PALE SKETCHER in the interim.
The new LP bears a much closer resemblance to early classics like Streetcleaner than 2001’s Hymns, which showed Broadrick’s guitar playing moving into the more shoegaze-influenced sound he’d explore more deeply during GODFLESH’s hiatus with bands like GREYMACHINE and JESU. Eight-string guitar and bass plod along menacingly in lockstep with monolithic drum machines. The relentlessly minimalist compositions are accompanied perfectly by the bleak, nihilistic vocals Broadrick so aggressively barks out. This is not to say that the album is a throwback, though. Some of the album’s second half features moments that stretch and expand the duo’s hypnotically repetitious riffage. The reverb-drenched sung vocals on “Imperator” are a nice touch, as is the more spaced out, dubby instrumentation which finishes “Towers of Emptiness”. Closing track “Forgive Our Fathers” hints more heavily at the shoegazey output Broadrick has delivered in recent years.
A World Lit Only By Fire stands strong alongside the earlier Decline and Fall EP as proof positive that GODFLESH is as vital and impressive now as they’ve been at any point in their long and winding career. They don’t just sound like a band re-formed, they sound like a band reinvigorated.
A World Lit Only By Fire is available now via Avalanche Recordings.