Godflesh
Streetcleaner: Live at Roadburn 2011

THE REVIEW

The first and so far only official live performance by the English band. The full re-enactment of that monolithic sonic monument, Streetcleaner, which was built and published back in 1989. Here we are in 2011 at the Roadburn Festival; I feel considerable envy towards those present, catapulted, “damaged” by the Industrial-Psychiatric sound of Broadrick-Green. They are only two, as has almost always occurred in their abnormal career; with the usual deadly, aseptic, frustrating drum machine thickening and consolidating a chilling, suffocating, penetrating sound. The 13 songs that make up the hellish sonic trip follow one after the other with stunning barrages. A sound even more distorted, with Justin's voice pushed to the extreme in most of the singing; damage upon damage. Dizzying guitar loops that never want to end; the instrument's strings violated by bleeding hands, Justin's hands. But it's Green's work on the bass that takes everything beyond any level of endurance; I myself struggle to stay riveted to listening for its entire duration, and we're over 70 minutes. A cyclopean, tentacular experience; siderurgical sounds drip over you, scalding you. Repeated, seemingly infinite, lashes that knock you out. The macabre dances are opened by Like Rats (“you breed, like rats” is the cruel opening scream...) and close with the 9 minutes of Suction where the sonic drubbing becomes atomic, ferocious, dynamic with rhythms of an unparalleled executive cruelty; ending with the amplifiers staying on for a few more minutes; screeching, mocking minutes... Total, absolute, blackest delirium. Among them, at least half a dozen tracks to be handed over to immortality, to future posterity. Enough...I must end this as soon as possible...I must unplug my cerebral amplifier...I must and want to start it all over again...TINY TEARS...

Ad Maiora.