Godflesh: Almost Heaven

Perfect apocalypse music.

Godflesh: Wake

GODFLESH: PURE

"Pure" (1992) by Godflesh. What a crushing release. This is the band's strongest release in my opinion. They mold a perfect apocalyptic doom landscape. They sound akin to the strongest riffs from Saint Vitus and Black Sabbath...but they meld these riffs with a drum machine and hellish droning feedback, bludgeoning you slowly, slowly, repetitively into claustrophobia, fear, and paranoia. The only musician that comes even close to creating such bleak, alienating, and frightening sounds capes is the god of psych space metal Helios Creed. Through and through, "Pure" is monumental, thundering and dissonant. The perfect soundtrack to the apocalypse. Highly recommended.

GODFLESH: CHRISTBAIT RISING

Ok. I'm on a roll of gloomy music here today so I might as well finish off the evening with the bleakest of them all...Godflesh. "Christbait Rising" comes from their second album "Streetcleaner", released in 1990. This is the first Godflesh album I had ever heard. I bought it when it first came out back in high school, and it blew me away. Never before have two men and a drum machine sounded so heavy. Very primitive and full of dread and paranoia...my hat goes off to Justin Broadrick and G. C. Green for creating the heaviest, most primitive and foreboding industrial doom metal ever made. Just listen to "Christbait Rising", and pick up the disc "Streetcleaner" if you like what you hear. I love Godlfesh, so don't be surprised if you see more Godflesh posts in the future.

ELECTRIC WIZARD: WE LIVE

Electric Wizard's "We Live" (2004) is an underrated and often overlooked doom metal album. In 2000 Electric Wizard released "Dopethrone". It's power, intensity, and brilliance can most likely never be reached again. They out-doomed Black Sabbath. It was the heaviest doom metal album on the planet. Then came their very weak and disappointing 2002 follow-up "Let Us Prey". I think this album turned many fans off, leaving their great 2004 album "We Live" unnoticed.

"We Live" is a monumental effort in the world of stoner metal. It is very heavy, sludgy, droning, feedback laden, melodic, atmospheric doom...heavily psychedelic, very slow, but very listenable. Whereas their classic 'Dopethrone" relied on fuzz, distortion, shouted vocals, and a very low end speaker rattling element in it's sound, "We Live" is much more subtle, artful, and melodic. This is the kind of doom I like to listen to...like a cross between Saint Vitus and Godflesh in their prime. This album only has six songs and all are great. My two favorites are the maddening drone of "Eko Eko Azarak", and the black hole like depression of "Another Perfect Day" and "The Sun Has Turned to Black". Highly recommended. Exquisite doom.





Electric Wizard continue to produce great material. Their 2007 release "Witchcult Today" combines the more melodic aspects of "We Live" with the ugly fuzz of "Dopethrone" with brain damaging results. Also, the band is due to begin work on a new album as we speak.