GODFLESH 'Streetcleaner'

'Streetcleaner', to cut right down to it, is a thoroughly crushing, punishing, unforgiving, and unrelenting album. The album cover itself foreshadows the content within - about a dozen bodies strewn up on crosses against a napalm-colored haze background. The music within is every bit as bleak as that image. Featuring GC Green on Bass, Justin Broadrick - formerly of Napalm Death - on guitars and vocals, as well as a drum machine, the duo/trio assault the listener with a soulcrushing 10(14*) track performance. GC's bass and the machine lay down a solid groove while Justin's rhythm guitar acts to heighten the tension… with Justin focusing on playing the guitar more like a percussive instrument than its traditional role. He even uses gold-plated guitar picks to give his harmonic squeals even more of a cutting metallic bite. The lyrics themselves are every bit as oppressive, stark, and minimalist as the imagery and music. They are more like short poems emoted out over the music. Examples include such lines as "Christbait rising. Bring you down", "Don't hold me back, this is my own hell", and "Don't look back, you were dead from the beginning." Those aren't tiny samples of lyrics - those lines are, pretty much, the entire lyrics to three different tracks.