Streetcleaner | ||||
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Studio album by Godflesh | ||||
Released | 13 November 1989 | |||
Recorded | May–August 1989 | |||
Studio | Soundcheck in Birmingham, England and Square Dance in Derby, England | |||
Genre | Industrial metal | |||
Length |
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Label | Earache Records | |||
Producer | ||||
Godflesh chronology | ||||
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Streetcleaner is the debut studio album of English industrial metal band Godflesh. It was released on 13 November 1989 through Earache Records. The album was widely acclaimed by critics and is often cited as a landmark album in the industrial metal genre. [1] [2] Streetcleaner has since been remastered, reissued, and praised as the band's signature album. [3]
Industrial metal is the fusion of heavy metal music and industrial music, typically employing repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Prominent industrial metal acts include Ministry, Godflesh, KMFDM and Nine Inch Nails.
Godflesh are an English industrial metal band from Birmingham, England. The group formed in 1982 under the title Fall of Because but did not release any complete music until 1988 when Justin Broadrick and G. C. Green (bass) renamed the band and decided to use a drum machine for percussion. Melding heavy metal with industrial music and later with electronic music and dub, Godflesh's innovative sound is widely regarded as a foundational influence on other industrial metal and post-metal acts and as significant to both experimental metal and extreme metal.
Earache Records is an independent record label, music publisher and management company founded by Digby Pearson, based in Nottingham, England with offices in London and New York. It helped to pioneer extreme metal by releasing early grindcore and death metal records between 1988 and 1994. The label roster has since diversified into more mainstream guitar music, working with bands such as Rival Sons, The Temperance Movement, Blackberry Smoke and The White Buffalo. The company also hosted the 'Earache Express' stage at Glastonbury Festival in 2017 and will be hosting 'The Earache Factory' at Boomtown Fair 2018.
In 2013, Godflesh released a live album performing Streetcleaner in its entirety. The album was originally distributed on vinyl and later saw release digitally and on CD in 2017. [4]
Streetcleaner: Live at Roadburn 2011 is the first live album from English industrial metal band Godflesh. The release was recorded on 14 April 2011 at the Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Netherlands. Apart from being the group's debut live album, it was also the first time they played Streetcleaner in its entirety.
In 1986, English musicians Justin Broadrick, G. C. Green, and Paul Neville recorded a demo, Extirpate, together as the band Fall of Because. [5] After Broadrick dissolved the group to join Head of David as a drummer, the three briefly parted ways. In 1988, Broadrick left Head of David and contacted Green to reform Fall of Because. This reformation became Godflesh, and three songs from Extirpate were turned into Godflesh tracks, two of which appear on Streetcleaner ("Devastator" and "Life Is Easy") and can be heard in their original rough state on the 1999 compilation Life Is Easy . [6]
Justin Karl Michael Broadrick is a British singer, songwriter, guitarist and drummer. He is best known as a founding member of the band Godflesh, one of the first bands to combine elements of extreme metal and industrial music. He was briefly in the English grindcore band Napalm Death when he was a teenager in the mid-1980s, writing and recording guitar for Side One of Napalm Death's debut album, Scum. Broadrick has also maintained a parallel career as a producer, producing records and remixes for groups such as Pantera, Isis, Mogwai and Hydra Head labelmates Pelican. Since 2012, he has been releasing hard techno music under the solo moniker JK Flesh. Broadrick has set up record labels such as HeadDirt, Avalanche Recordings, Post Mortem Productions, Lo Fibre and Heartache.
Ben George Christian "G. C." Green is an English musician, best known as the co-founder and bass guitarist of the Birmingham-based industrial metal band, Godflesh.
Paul Neville is an underground experimental industrial metal guitarist and musician from Birmingham, England.
Streetcleaner was recorded in several sessions. The first five songs were recorded by Broadrick and Green at Soundcheck, a studio in Birmingham, from May to August 1989. [7] The next five songs were recorded at Square Dance in Derby in May 1989 with the reintroduction of Neville as second guitarist. [7] The last four songs were originally recorded before Streetcleaner as a separate EP titled Tiny Tears, which the band wanted their label, Earache Records, to release as the follow-up to their self-titled EP. [8] Earache, however, pushed the band to record a full-length album instead, and the Tiny Tears EP never saw independent release. [3] The songs were appended as bonus tracks to the CD versions of Streetcleaner. [9]
Birmingham is the second-most populous city in the United Kingdom, after London, and the most populous city in the English Midlands. With an estimated population of 1,137,100 as of 2017, Birmingham is the cultural, social, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. It is the main centre of the West Midlands conurbation, which is the third most populated urban area in the United Kingdom, with a population in 2011 of 2,440,986. The wider Birmingham metropolitan area is the second largest in the United Kingdom with a population of over 3.7 million. Birmingham is frequently referred to as the United Kingdom's "second city".
Derby is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, of which it was traditionally the county town. At the 2011 census, the population was 248,700. Derby gained city status in 1977.
Godflesh is the debut extended play (EP) by English industrial metal band Godflesh. It was originally released in 1988 through Swordfish Records and later saw several reissues on Earache Records with two additional songs. An unexpected underground success, the eponymous EP made it onto the UK Indie Chart and peaked at position 20. Though not supported by any singles or music videos at the time, a fan-made video for "Avalanche Master Song" has since been made official by the band.
The album's cover is a still frame of a hallucination scene from the 1980 Ken Russell movie Altered States . [10]
Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell was a British film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. His films in the main were liberal adaptations of existing texts, or biographies, notably of composers of the Romantic era. Russell began directing for the BBC, where he made creative adaptations of composers' lives which were unusual for the time. He also directed many feature films independently and for studios.
Altered States is a 1980 American science-fiction horror film directed by Ken Russell based on the novel of the same name by playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. The film was adapted from Chayefsky's only novel and is his final screenplay. Both the novel and the film are based on John C. Lilly's sensory deprivation research conducted in isolation tanks under the influence of psychoactive drugs like mescaline, ketamine, and LSD.
"Dream Long Dead" is an example of the album's blend of industrial repetition and heavy metal. | |
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Streetcleaner is one of the first albums to merge industrial music and heavy metal. [11] [12] [13] The album accomplishes such a fusion with its heavy reliance upon the drum machine along with Green's driving bass and Broadrick's distorted guitar and guttural vocals. [14] Writing for The Quietus , Noel Gardner said, "the original nine tracks [...] effect a great compromise, in a brilliantly uncompromising way, between making a drum machine sound like the consummate heavy metal instrument and making metal guitars sound like their bulk renders them unplayable by human hands." [3] In The Rough Guide to Rock, Richard Fontenoy said, "With the heaviest of metal riffs, slowed down to a crushing, claustrophobic pace and backed by a drum machine, Godflesh created a relentless, alienating wall of sound overlaid with feedback, samples, and Broadrick's misanthropic vocals." [15] The use of the drum machine, an Alesis HR-16, [10] was in part inspired by the American bands Big Black and Swans [16] [1] and by hip hop music, like Public Enemy and Eric B. & Rakim. [10] [17] About the instrument, Broadrick said:
Industrial music is a genre of experimental music which draws on harsh, transgressive or provocative sounds and themes. AllMusic defines industrial music as the "most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music" that was "initially a blend of avant-garde electronics experiments and punk provocation". The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by members of Throbbing Gristle and Monte Cazazza. While the genre name originated with Throbbing Gristle's emergence in the United Kingdom, concentrations of artists and labels vital to the genre also emerged in Chicago.
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom. With roots in blues rock, psychedelic rock, and acid rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. The genre's lyrics and performance styles are sometimes associated with aggression and machismo.
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds. Most modern drum machines allow users to program their own rhythms. Drum machines may create sounds using analog synthesis or play prerecorded samples.
"That was an amazing machine. It's fucking mental, mostly because you could layer kicks. You could layer everything. Most of what the Godflesh early sound was—you could literally blend six kick drums. Other drum machines we played with at the time, they sounded much more plasticky and much more synthetic, and they also didn't have the ability to tune. What we were doing was, like, putting three kick drums together and tuning two of them to -12, and shit like that. We weren't doing it with any sense of technical perfection; we were doing it because it sounded rough, because it sounded raw and nasty." [10]
Aside from mechanical percussion, Streetcleaner employs another staple of industrial music: samples, the most notable of which appears as the introduction to the album's title track. The audio clip is the voice of convicted serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, taken from an interrogation. [18]
Streetcleaner was originally released on 13 November 1989 through Earache Records. It was remastered and reissued on 21 June 2010. This reissue includes a second disc of bonus material, which is composed of alternate mixes, live excerpts from 1990, guitar and drum machine demo tracks and rehearsals. [19]
Professional ratings | |
---|---|
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | |
Chicago Tribune | |
Entertainment Weekly | B+ [20] |
Streetcleaner received critical acclaim and was later hailed as a creative masterpiece. [1] [2] Ned Raggett of AllMusic said, "Compared to so many metal wimps who invoke Satan and death in the cheesiest of ways [...] Godflesh let their own brusque impact do the talking for them, and the result is suitably apocalyptic." Raggett also wrote that "the band deliver everything with a pinpoint precision". [16] Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot stated that "the sonic landscape is something else, blending the vicious with the ethereal." [14] For Entertainment Weekly , David Browne wrote, "Sounding like a visit to an out-of-control crackhouse that sits next to a train station, Streetcleaner should make Stephen King think twice about calling the comparatively tame AC/DC his favorite band." [20] In a retrospective review of the album, The Quietus' Noel Gardner wrote, "It's not going to atomise too many folks' received wisdom if I suggest Streetcleaner is probably the best thing Godflesh ever did." [3] Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune called the album one of the most menacing ever released. [21] In 2007, Burton C. Bell of the industrial metal band Fear Factory said, "Streetcleaner is a fantastically produced and written record; every song is an opus." [22]
Streetcleaner has since appeared on many publications' greatest albums lists.
Year | Publication | Country | Accolade | Rank | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1995 | Alternative Press | United States | "Top 99 of '85 to '95" | 34 | [23] |
1998 | Alternative Press | United States | "The 90 Greatest Albums of the '90s" | 79 | [24] |
2000 | Kerrang! | United Kingdom | "200 Albums for the Year 2000 (Industrial)" | 5 | [25] |
2000 | Terrorizer | United Kingdom | "100 Most Important Albums of the Eighties" | * | [26] |
2002 | Revolver | United States | "The 69 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time" | 66 | [27] |
2011 | NME | United Kingdom | "The Twenty Heaviest (Metal) Records of All Time" | 7 | [28] |
2011 | Terrorizer | United Kingdom | "The Heaviest Albums Ever" | 1 | [29] |
2013 | Fact | United Kingdom | "The 100 Best Albums of the 1980s" | 3 | [2] |
2017 | Rolling Stone | United States | "The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time" | 64 | [1] |
2018 | Loudwire | United States | "The Best Metal Album from 40 Subgenres" | * | [30] |
"*" denotes an unordered list. |
All tracks written by J. K. Broadrick and G. C. Green. Tracks 6 to 10 also written by Paul Neville.
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Like Rats" | 4:29 |
2. | "Christbait Rising" | 7:00 |
3. | "Pulp" | 4:16 |
4. | "Dream Long Dead" | 5:19 |
5. | "Head Dirt" | 6:09 |
6. | "Devastator" | 3:20 |
7. | "Mighty Trust Krusher" | 5:26 |
8. | "Life Is Easy" | 4:51 |
9. | "Streetcleaner" | 6:42 |
10. | "Locust Furnace" | 4:45 |
Total length: | 52:21 |
CD-only bonus tracks (Tiny Tears EP) | ||
---|---|---|
No. | Title | Length |
11. | "Tiny Tears" | 3:25 |
12. | "Wound" | 3:05 |
13. | "Dead Head" | 4:09 |
14. | "Suction" | 3:22 |
Total length: | 66:22 |
2010 remaster disc two | ||
---|---|---|
No. | Title | Length |
1. | "Like Rats" (Original Unreleased Mix) | 4:22 |
2. | "Christbait Rising" (Original Unreleased Mix) | 6:50 |
3. | "Pulp" (Original Unreleased Mix) | 4:07 |
4. | "Dream Long Dead" (Original Unreleased Mix) | 5:08 |
5. | "Head Dirt" (Original Unreleased Mix) | 6:01 |
6. | "Streetcleaner" (Live Geneva Early 1990) | 5:47 |
7. | "Head Dirt" (Live Geneva Early 1990) | 6:00 |
8. | "Pulp" (Rehearsal May 1989) | 12:20 |
9. | "Dream Long Dead" (Rehearsal April 1989) | 5:29 |
10. | "Christbait Rising" (Rehearsal April 1989) | 6:34 |
11. | "Deadhead" (Original Demo Guitar & Machine 1988) | 4:01 |
12. | "Suction" (Original Demo Guitar & Machine 1988) | 3:11 |
Total length: | 69:50 |
Notes
Godflesh
| Technical personnel
|
Chart (1989) | Peak position |
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UK Indie Chart [31] | 19 |
Slavestate is an EP by industrial metal band Godflesh. It was released in July 1991 through Earache Records. The EP saw the band experimenting with more samples and electronic sounds than their predominantly industrial metal prior releases.
Pure is the second studio album by English industrial metal band Godflesh. It was released on 13 April 1992 through Earache Records. Though originally labeled only as industrial metal, the album has since been recognised as one of the earliest post-metal releases. Musically, Pure is harsh and mechanical, with protracted songs and an abundance of deliberate repetition. Like much of Godflesh's music, it is regarded as particularly heavy and aggressive.
Selfless is the third studio album by British industrial metal band Godflesh. It was released on 26 September 1994 in Europe and on 18 October 1994 through Earache and Columbia Records. Being the band's major-label debut, the record features a more conventional and rock-oriented sound compared to Godflesh's previous releases. It spawned two singles, "Xnoybis" and "Crush My Soul". The music video for the latter was directed by photographer Andres Serrano.
Songs of Love and Hate is the fourth studio album by English industrial metal band Godflesh. Released on 20 August 1996 through Earache Records, it is the band's first album to feature live drums, played by drummer Bryan Mantia, and a more traditional heavy metal sound, generally lacking the experimental and mechanical elements of previous releases. The cover is a photograph of Cancer Alley, Louisiana.
Us and Them is the fifth studio album by English band Godflesh. It was released through Earache Records on 17 May 1999 in Europe and on 8 June 1999 in North America. As with Godflesh's 1997 remix album Love and Hate in Dub, Us and Them is influenced by breakbeats, drum and bass, oldschool jungle, trip hop and hip hop.
Hymns is the sixth studio album by English industrial metal band Godflesh. It was released on 23 October 2001 through Music for Nations and was the band's final album before breaking up in 2002. In 2010, Godflesh reformed and in 2014 released their comeback album A World Lit Only by Fire. Hymns had a troubled production and was intended to be distinct departure from Godflesh's intensely regimented industrial sound to something more traditionally hard rock. It was the band's second and final album to feature a live drummer rather than a drum machine.
Merciless is an EP released by industrial metal band Godflesh in 1994 through Earache and Columbia. In 1996, the EP was reissued along with the Selfless (1994) album as the compilation Selfless/Merciless.
In All Languages is a compilation album by British industrial metal band Godflesh, released on 24 July 2001 through Earache Records. It is a double album, and a companion music video DVD was also released in 2001. In All Languages' first disc acts as a greatest hits collection spanning from Godflesh's 1988 self-titled EP to their 1999 studio album, Us and Them. The second disc compiles rare and unreleased tracks.
The English industrial metal band Godflesh have released eight studio albums and six extended plays along with a number of singles, compilations and remix and live albums. The group formed in 1982 under the name Fall of Because, but they did not release any music until 1988 when Justin Broadrick and G. C. Green changed the project's name to Godflesh and recorded a self-titled debut EP. That EP, released through the independent label Swordfish, was met with underground success and has since been recognised as one of the first industrial metal releases, if not the first.
A World Lit Only by Fire is the seventh studio album by English industrial metal band Godflesh. It was released on 7 October 2014 through frontman Justin Broadrick's own label, Avalanche Recordings, and was the band's first full-length album since 2001's Hymns. It was preceded by the digital singles "New Dark Ages" in August 2014 and "Imperator" in September 2014, and it was followed by several international tours.
"Xnoybis" is a song by the industrial metal band Godflesh, taken from the album Selfless (1994). It was released in 1995 through Earache Records as a CD, and was also distributed as a promotional to radio stations.
Post Self is the eighth studio album by English industrial metal band Godflesh. It was released on 17 November 2017 through frontman Justin Broadrick's own record label, Avalanche Recordings, and was the band's second album since reforming in 2010. The single "Post Self" was released for streaming on 31 October 2017, and a second track, "Be God", was released for streaming on 11 November 2017, six days in advance of the full release. Godflesh avoided interviews in the wake of Post Self, hoping to retain some of the album's purity and give listeners a chance to digest the music in a vacuum.
Life Is Easy is a compilation album by Birmingham-based industrial metal group Fall of Because, compiling songs recorded in 1986 and 1987 before the band became Godflesh. Released on 24 August 1999 through Alleysweeper and distributed by Martin Atkins' label Invisible Records, Life Is Easy contains many songs that went on to be rerecorded and turned into Godflesh tracks.
"Mothra" is a song by industrial metal band Godflesh. It was taken from their 1992 album Pure and saw release as a radio promo and music video in the same year. The track's title is derived from 1961 Japanese film of the same name by Ishirō Honda. Musically, "Mothra" is a grinding, mechanical song with shouted vocals and heavily distorted instruments.