Industrial metal pioneers Godflesh have shared “Master and Slave,” the vicious opening track from their forthcoming tenth and penultimate studio album, Decay, due September 25 via Relapse Records.
Arriving nearly four decades after the band’s inception, Decay finds Justin Broadrick and longtime bassist Ben Green entering the final chapter of Godflesh while pushing their unmistakable sound into even bleaker territory.
“Master and Slave” serves as the first introduction to that chapter, delivering the oppressive weight, mechanical rhythms and stark atmosphere that have made Godflesh one of heavy music’s most influential and singular acts.
“Music, for me, is rarely complete,” Broadrick says. “But it has to reach a point where enough is enough. Creatively, there has to be self-discipline. One has to end it.”
That philosophy extends beyond the process of completing Decay. The album is set to be Godflesh’s penultimate full-length as Broadrick prepares to bring the project’s decades-long run toward its conclusion.
Decay also arrives following major abdominal surgery Broadrick underwent earlier this year. According to the musician, recording for the album—including his vocals—had already been completed before the procedure, though portions of two songs were recorded while he was dealing with a hernia.
Broadrick explained that years of performing Godflesh’s physically demanding vocal style contributed to the condition, ultimately making continuing the band in its current form physically unsustainable.
“I’ve put my body and soul into this expression for the majority of my existence,” Broadrick says. “I feel quite lucky, because Godflesh is now physically impossible for me, rendering it useless. I now wish to move out of its constraints, move on creatively with heavy/ugly music to new ground.”
Godflesh formed in Birmingham, England in 1988 and quickly established a radically different approach to heavy music. Their landmark 1989 debut Streetcleaner fused crushing guitar tones, drum-machine rhythms, industrial repetition and bleak atmosphere into a sound whose influence would spread throughout industrial metal and beyond.
Records including Pure and Hymns, alongside releases such as Slavestate and Messiah, further expanded the band’s vocabulary through experimentation with sampling, electronics and increasingly diverse rhythmic approaches.
Following a lengthy hiatus, Godflesh returned in 2014 with the Decline & Fall EP and A World Lit Only By Fire. Post Self followed in 2017 before the band resurfaced again with Purge in 2023.
Decay now begins Godflesh’s final stretch, with Broadrick and Green preparing to close the book on one of extreme music’s most uncompromising bodies of work.
Decay Track Listing
- Master and Slave
- Living/Ending
- Feral Colony
- Fear of Man
- Fodder
- Consume Me
Godflesh’s Decay arrives September 25 via Relapse Records.