Ben Green’s thumping bass leads to huffy breathing, which leads to bone-snapping drum machine rhythms and an ectoplasmic elastic guitar riff. Then comes Justin Broadrick‘s pained growls: “Wipe out/Suction/Forlorn/Evermore.” This is Godflesh then, and this is Godflesh now as heard on the new single, “Living/Ending,” which recalls the industrial death rattle of the band’s debut LP, Streetcleaner, but with the thickness of their Slavestate EP. The song is the first taste of what the band says will be its penultimate album, Decay, out Sept. 25.
In March, Broadrick revealed on Instagram that Godflesh would be retiring from touring following a devastating hernia surgery and that he could no longer scream the way Godflesh’s music required. He alluded to the end of Godflesh in a statement released Wednesday. “Music, for me, is rarely complete, but it has to reach a point where enough is enough,” he said. “Creatively, there has to be self-discipline. One has to end it.”
Godflesh reunited in 2009 after a seven-year hiatus with albums that continued the crushing industro-metal maelstroms they pioneered in the late Eighties. Purge, released in 2023, placed Number Two on Rolling Stone’s list of the best metal albums of that year, while Post-Self appeared on the 2017 list and A World Lit Only by Fire made the 2014 list.
The seeds of Decay took root when the group was working on its most recent album, 2023’s Purge. “Fortunately, all of the recordings for Decay were completed long before the surgery, vocals included … although the back end of a couple of songs were recorded with the hernia itself, and that was a struggle,” he said. “I was already aware that the Godflesh shout, so to speak, was exacerbating the hernia greatly.… The album was mixed postsurgery, and while I was still in some pain and considerable discomfort, but fortunately Godflesh is generally me expressing my pain, albeit [usually] mental, philosophical and existential, whereas this was physical pain.”
Although Godflesh still has a final album to announce, Broadrick is already refocusing his creative efforts on music that’s less physically demanding, specifically for his Jesu and JK Flesh projects. “I feel quite lucky, because Godflesh is now physically impossible for me, rendering it useless,” he said. “I now wish to move out of its constraints, move on creatively with heavy/ugly music to new ground.” In his Instagram announcement, Broadrick said he hoped to complete the final Godflesh album (sans shouting) by the end of 2026.
Decay Track List
1. “Master and Slave”
2. “Living/Ending”
3. “Feral Colony”
4. “Fear of Man”
5. “Fodder”
6. “Consume Me”
