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I feel the same way about Justin Broadrick as I do about Metallica: their later work doesn’t move me, but I cherish their earlier output. Earache is reissuing Godflesh’s Songs of Love and Hate (1996), Love and Hate in Dub (1997), and In All Languages DVD (2001) in a low-priced box set. It’s an interesting decision. Songs of Love and Hate (and every record after Selfless, really) is more footnote than pillar in Godflesh’s legacy. It was the band’s first record with a live drummer, Bryan “Brain” Mantia (who later joined Primus, and who played with Buckethead in Praxis and Guns N’ Roses). Conversely, it was also Godflesh’s first extensive foray into breakbeats.
Gang Starr – Speak Ya CloutGodflesh – Circle of Shit
The results were literally mixed. Tracks often found Mantia playing alongside loops in uneasy union. The record suffered from a lack of focus. Broadrick sometimes seemed more interested in flexing production chops than writing songs. Still, highlights were many. “Sterile Prophet,” one of Godflesh’s few uptempo songs, was insistent and dirty. On the remix package Love and Hate in Dub, Broadrick reshaped it into a stripped-down “Version” and a half-speed “Dub” that was a primitive precursor to dubstep. “Circle of Shit” sampled “Speak Ya Clout,” the sequel to “I’m the Man,” the Gang Starr posse cut that introduced Jeru the Damaja to the world. Love and Hate in Dub was even more scattershot than its parent. However, its grimy, dystopian breakbeats helped spawn offspring like Dälek and El-P. Even at his worst, Broadrick was influential.
This is a bit of an odd combination for a box set – why not include Us and Them while they’re at it?
I agree regarding Love and Hate; about half of it is quality and the rest is just a miserable listen. At the time of its release I blamed Mantia and the live drums, but I think it was really just a slump in creativity on Broadrick’s part. I consider myself a diehard Godflesh fan and yet I’ve only made it through the dub version three, maybe four times.
I’ll still take this over Us and Them, though.
Argh! Dude! Offensive parallel there! Almost everything Justin Broadrick has ever done is INCREDIBLE. Even if for some reason you saw a decline after “Selfless” (I totally disagree, each album after that had at least one outright incredible, classic song), the comparison against Metallica… whose output has just turned to pure and total shit… you can’t do that!
I loved Songs of Love and Hate. But what is this DVD? Is it an audio DVD or is there some footage on it?
the dvd is 5 videos they did for Earache records. the whole set is only 16.00 at earache u.s.
charlie
Is there anything in this set that would make it worth the purchase if you already own the 3?
Jesu’s output has most certainly turned into total shit. I mean, unless you like stuff that aspires to soundtrack skinemax prods.
Selfless had its moments…but deep in your heart you know Godflesh was shit after Pure.
Rob – this package looks like a simple sum of its parts. If you already have all three, you needn’t get it. The point of the package seems to be to bring them back into print.
floodwatch – judging from the way Earache does reissues, Us and Them would get a separate one if it ever got one. Songs and its dub version make a logical package, with the DVD as a pleasant afterthought.
pdf – I disagree. The Merciless EP, which is post-Pure, is unfuckwithable.
Not a big fan of Merciless, other than the song “Flowers” (which was just a remix of “Don’t Bring Me Flowers” from Pure). They had good songs after Pure, don’t get me wrong, but they never made a great album after that one. I think “Love, Hate (Slugbaiting)” is the greatest song Godflesh ever recorded, though, so I’m kind of odd man out, I suspect.
Ludicrous. I like “Merciless” AND “Selfless” much more than “Pure”. Much more. Absolutely outlandish…
The s/t ep and Streetcleaner are the only things I can handle.
Likewise.
Based on the hate that later day Godflesh albums are getting I’m sure I’ll be completly flamed for saying how much I liked “Hymns”.
Yeah ok sorry everybody but I actually think Love & Hate was the peak of godflesh. Everything after that was dull really but I honestly can say love and hate is one of my top 5 favourite albums ever
I’m amazed so many people see such a variation in the Godflesh albums; to me, there all remarkably consistent. They all have different elements of focus, but the framework they fit into is the same, Streetcleaner to Hymns…
I actually think SoLaH is my favourite of the lot. Driving rockers at the start (Wake, Sterile Prophet), weirdness at the end (Frail, Almost Heaven), and all kinds of cool stuff in between.
Gift from Heaven/Amoral is probably my favourite two-track sequence from Godflesh’s discography after Like Rats/Christbait Rising!
Some people seem to have this conception that Godflesh were deliberate innovators in their early work, and thus devalue their later albums. Personally, I never heard them before Selfless, so I never bought into that. I think we just hear the changes in JKB’s musical interests over time, resulting in musical surface variations of the underlying Godflesh theme.
Also, I can’t understand why so many people get excited over Merciless… I agree with pdf on that one (although I won’t go with him on Slugbaiting!).
I think the Messiah EP was more interesting.
I’ve gotta hear this. I love the claustrophobic mechanized paranoia that they dealt out….and when they weren’t just dealing out claustrophobic mechanized paranoia. Jesu is cool and all, but I don’t think that he necessarily had to have polar opposites relegated to different bands.
As a friend remarked to me, he’s had a bit of difficulty getting some more casual old Godflesh fans to know that it’s him in the new projects….the stickers on the front always say “featuring Justin Broadrick of Godflesh”, hahaa.
I love LaHID and Us & Them just as much as their earlier stuff. It often sounds to me like Songs of Love And Hate was just source material that JKB could sample and fuck up for the remix album.
That’s an interesting theory that I would buy.
So these aren't remastered or anything?
Roeland – These are remastered. See here:
http://askearache.blogspot.com/2009/08/godflesh-re-issues-are-they-remastered.html
Godflsh will always be remembered for its first albums. While the later material surely tried to expand the band’s sonority, it also created a void with it’s core audience who didn’t exactly felt the same interest in breakbeat or dub. I still give those albums a listen (bought this package) but nothing beats ‘Streetcleaner’ for me.
I guess their reunion set at Hellfest will be built around their ‘classic material’.