Godflesh - Us and Them (1999)^{Release ID: 258}

I’ve never been a fan of Godflesh’s style of repetitive and simple Sludge Metal focusing on textures, nor was I very much on board for their overly rhythmic and still simple Industrial Metal. The issue is, none of the instruments are ever doing enough. Drums are slow, simple, and often play the same beat an entire song. Guitars scarcely compose something that could be considered a riff, usually opting to add fuzzy heaviness without much direction. Vocals always a bit too monotonous and occupying an unflattering middle ground between aggressive and lethargic. Industrial sound effects were, once more, too repetitive and too few to have much impact on the music.

Well, one of those things changed on Us and Them. The band adopted a very significant Drum and Bass influence for this album. Because of this, the rhythm section picked up a ton in intensity and complexity on many of the tracks. Sure, it’s still repetitive as all hell, but a faster paced, energetic and powerful beat backing their miserable tracks does wonders for entertainment. It’s all machines, but their previous drummers did everything in their power to sound like soulless robots anyway, so that’s no loss.

The unfortunate thing is, none of the other weaknesses were alleviated. Guitars are incredibly boring and minimal. The bass actually has some really cool moments, which is awesome! It finds itself playing lead more often than not, which just does more to highlight the rhythm section as the ultimate strength to this album. As cool as the rhythm section is here, it can’t offset the other incredibly boring aspects of the album. The band has incorporated more Industrial sound effects here, and this is a blessing and a curse: at best, the minimalistic songs gain some much-needed layers of density and intrigue; at worst, an incredibly annoying sound clip will repeat 30 times over, doing everything it can to ruin the song for you.

Special mention to the final tracks “The Internal” and “Live to Lose,” which show them building atmosphere and mood to great effect. Closer in sound to the Cold World EP material, which was the band at my absolute favorite. These songs are awesome and appeal to my tastes so much more. When the band builds atmosphere in addition to their trademark texture and rhythm, it elevates their music exponentially. Unfortunately, they rarely ever do this, and texture by itself proves something that will never appeal to me.

So the album before this one, Songs of Love and Hate, was kind of a half-good album that doesn't live up to the strength of Godflesh's first 3 albums. But if you think any of the songs in that album are bad, wait until you hear what they got in Us and Them...

Godflesh decided to break out of the earlier humanistic approach for something more technological. Most of the harsh industrial metal is stripped down into broader ideas of trip-hop, drum 'n' bass, and ambient textures. It's the kind of trend that ends up getting outdated, yet when the usual monolithic bass and dark riffing come in every now and then, it's a fresh refreshment as opposed to this eclectic techno sh*t. Expansive while lacking innovation resulting in something somewhat dull.

The drum 'n' bass beat patterns of "I, Me, Mine" sound OK in quality, but for many listeners, it might cause some boredom. Then we have the hip-hop sample-infused title track. After that, we have something I might enjoy in "Endgames" with dark layers of bass textures. Of course, we go back to moronic failures with the b***hy "Witchhunt".

"Whose Truth is Your Truth?" is nowhere close to a good track. The dark-ragga-metal-jungle "Defiled" follows a looping pattern with a cool beat and solid writing, but with the music and vocals have that style throughout, it's just not right. However, "Bittersweet" master the shoegaze-influenced sound well. "Nail" brings back the stronger fare.

Crashing through heavy drumming is "Descent". After that, "Control Freak" is another filler track that doesn't go anywhere. "The Internal" continues the airy shoegaze in a much better form that would probably inspire Justin Broadrick's later project Jesu. "Live to Lose" is probably the best track of the album if you wish to explore more of Godflesh's heavy riffing. It is a bonus track recorded during the Songs of Love and Hate sessions that ended up in this album.

An ominous yet alienating formula plagues Us and Them and left the band's fanbase puzzled. They would bring back some of their metal while kept stripped down in their next and final album before their temporary split-up Hymns. Us and Them is definitely not the place to start when it comes to Godflesh. Better stick with Streetcleaner....

Favorites (only songs I truly like in this album): "Endgames", "Nail", "The Internal", "Live to Lose"