Godflesh
"Hymns"
(Koch Records) 

Industrial metal pioneers Godflesh are back with a new album, a dark set of "Hymns" that will take you on a dark  journey through a foreboding world. All the songs on this album are dark, heavy, and sinister, and they use a variety of musical influences. Black Sabbath seems to be a big one. The opening track, "Defeated", is very similar to "Into The Void". The closing track as well, "Jesu", is an aggressive Sabbath/Pantera influenced tune, in which singer/guitarist Justin Broaderick screams "you're fucked!" over and over! There are several other Sabbath-influenced songs on the album, such as "Anthem", "Voidhead", "White Flag", and "Regal". Some grunge influence has also rubbed of on the band, in songs like "Deaf, Dumb, and Blind" and "Paralyzed", both of which are on the bouncy side, as well as "Animals", "Tyrant" ( a rather monotonous tune with the same guitar riff repeated over and over) and "Far Life". The most "industrial" song on the album is "Antihuman", and "Vampires" is a pretty cool tune, a NIN-meets-grunge kind of song with some cool guitar effects at the end. This album is less "industrial" than Godflesh's earlier releases, with fewer electronic sound effects, less use of looping and samples, and no drum programming (they've been using a real drummer for several years now). The music is raw, aggressive, and downtuned, with Justin wailing in an agonized voice, sometimes even screaming! Godflesh's style of music isn't really my cup of tea, but it's good for what it is. My only real dislikes about this album is the music can be a bit monotonous, as all the songs sound very similar to each other, and the CD is very long, clocking in at seventy three minutes! But Godflesh fans should like this, and probably won't mind the length.

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