Monolithic metal legends Godflesh play rare Orlando show

While Nero fiddled, Rome burned. And as the world burns in 2023, Godflesh similarly soundtrack the carnage with new song “Nero.”

The legendary U.K. industrial-metal duo — neither of those words seems adequate to sum up Godflesh’s monolithic and hypnotic sound — of Justin K. Broadrick and Ben Green at last broke a lengthy silence that stretched back to 2017’s Post Self album.

Godflesh have always been a band very much in tune with our increasing race towards the apocalypse, but somehow “post-pandemic” and heatpocalypse summer 2023, “Nero” hits a little harder. The sound is classic Godflesh, evoking the rhythmic self-immolation of Pure, where the nominal tools of the metal trade were lashed to tweaked-out drum programming, all toward the ends of submission rather than dominance — an acknowledgement of fragility and vulnerability in the face of (now, near-certain) oblivion.

The day “Nero” was released back in April, improbably, Godflesh announced a North American tour. Even more improbably, this tour includes a Florida date in Orlando at Conduit. (And no NYC show!)

If one is tempted to impose metaphorical meaning on the simplest of gestures, Godflesh materializing in cities across the U.S. feels more than a little like the Four Horsemen coming to check the scene.

And since the end times require good music, Godflesh just released their first new album in years, the aptly named Purge. Besides existing as a standalone song cycle of overwhelming beauty and hurt, it’s doubly intriguing for its conceptual underpinnings.

Purge is Broadrick’s attempt to use his music as a “temporary relief from his diagnosed autism and PTSD” (which brings the tortured howls of, say, “Land Lord” into sharper focus). Purge is also a sequel to Godflesh’s breakthrough album, Pure. Released in 1992, the album had a seismic impact on the metal and alternative worlds. This album was Godflesh at, yes, their most pure.

Broadrick and Green revisiting those tools, techniques and emotions for Purge (even the implicit wordplay in the title) are an irresistible proposition, and more than borne out by the finished Purge. Mantric guitar and bass, distorted to hell but in telepathic sync, locked in to a drum machine full of deconstructed boom-bap rap and house-music percussion loops, make for irresistible listening.

What’s that, you want another full-circle note, but make it localized? How about this: In summer 1992, Godflesh were supposed to open for Skinny Puppy at the Edge in Orlando. For whatever reason, it didn’t happen. Now, several decades later, Godflesh will play songs from Pure‘s sequel in Florida. Give up and give in.

Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | or sign up for our RSS Feed

This article appears in Jun 28 – Jul 4, 2023.