GODFLESH Decay REVIEW + Albums RANKED

Drumming? From the Alesis SR-16? Lol.

Godflesh is dead… Long live Godflesh… What a fantastic career!

Here's my personal ranking:

Perfection: Streetcleaner, Pure, Purge
Fantastic: Songs of Love and Hate, A World Lit Only by Fire, Decay
Great: Selfless, Us and Them
Good: Godflesh EP, Hymns, Post Self

Unrelated question: What is the LP beneath Pretty Hate Machine on your wall? I like the artwork 👀

The album Selfless is a complete work—a monumental achievement in industrial metal that perfectly blends crushing heaviness with dark electronics and a hypnotic atmosphere. It’s my favorite album! Though Streetcleaner and Pure certainly belong on the podium too—along with those killer, atmospheric EPs! I’ve listened to Godflesh from the very beginning; they never released a weak record, and each one brought something fresh and new to the table. The biggest surprise was the introduction of dance rhythms—something that alienated many die-hard metalheads at the time—but it was refreshing and showed real evolution!

Kinda underrated, being so unique, so minimalistic, with simplistic, mechanical formula, yet always having lots of compelling turns. Unchangeably feral, severe, weighing, hypnotic, crushing emotionally, post-apocalypticaslly exhausted, with awesome bassliness. And somehow the 'Purge' & 'Decay' direction checks out for me even more (yup, sounds like a blasphemy).

Songs of love and hate, gift from heaven in particular, was my introduction to Godflesh back in 96. It was on an earache compilation tape that got sent out to some sort of fan mailing list. It was a long time ago…..I don’t recall how I ended up on that list lol
But then I went to streetcleaner and it terrified me the first few times I heard it. Especially the vocals in the title track!

Post self is my fave since then as it taps into that same feeling I got with streetcleaner. For the record, totally agree with you regarding selfless too. It’s the only album i have never felt much for. The rest of the list though is pretty spot on, but songs of love and hate should be perfection! It really is and has my my fave godflesh album closing track. Almost heaven is just bliss for me!

Songs of Love & Hate, Us & Them, A World Lit Only By Fire are my favorites. Post Self is an interesting one. I consider myself to be a fan of Godflesh, but with the exception of a few songs i'm not into Pure and Streetcleaner !

Decay over Purge? No way man.

You should do a tour of your battle jacket dude 🤘

Us And Them is so underrated. One time i was walking in pouring rain at night in the city with that album in my headphones, man was that creepy and badass at the same time.

1. Streetcleaner
2. Pure
3. Selfless
4. Songs of love and hate
5. Self titled
6. Post Self
7. Decay (ive only listened to this one a couple of times all the way through- i like it, alot – this will probably go up the rankings)
8. Us and Them
9. A World lit only by fire
10. Hymns
11. Purge
I don't think this band has a bad release in their catalog. Keep in mind- after my top 2 or 3 which never moves- its really how I'm feeling at the moment. This is one of my favorite bands.

Streetcleaner makes Slipknot's Iowa sound like Kidz Bop

Those first 2 albums changed my dang life back then. Timeless!

It's funny, Hymns is the one that hooked me into Godflesh as I heard it first and I didn't immediately explore the rest of the discography. Today I also rank Hymns at the bottom but it's still a great album that got me hooked.