GODFLESH released Decay on September 25 through Relapse Records. It is the Birmingham duo's tenth studio album and, by Justin Broadrick's own account, the penultimate one. Alongside the release the band shared the album closer, "Consume Me".
Decay comes three years after Purge and was built from the same sessions. "Decay was born from the same sessions as Purge," Broadrick explains. "It was one huge pool of songs. I picked what I felt was appropriate for what I wanted to achieve with Purge, with the intention of releasing the songs that didn't fit as a new album within a year." That year turned into two while he looked for a label, so that he would no longer have to self-release GODFLESH. The band has now landed at Relapse.
The record runs to six tracks: "Master and Slave", "Living/Ending", "Feral Colony", "Fear of Man", "Fodder" and "Consume Me". Broadrick and bassist Ben Green recorded everything before the major abdominal surgery Broadrick underwent earlier this year, and he mixed the album while still recovering. He says the hernia itself was largely caused by decades of the GODFLESH shout, and that the back end of a couple of songs was recorded with it.
That is also why the end is in sight. "Godflesh is now physically impossible for me, rendering it useless," Broadrick says. "I now wish to move out of its constraints, move on creatively with heavy/ugly music to new ground." Thirty-eight years after the band formed and more than three decades after Streetcleaner rewrote what industrial metal could be, one more album is planned before GODFLESH stops.
We covered the album's announcement in August and the opening track "Master and Slave" earlier this month. Now the whole thing is out.