Back in the late 90s, I was working in a record store in the suburbs of Minneapolis. This may sound like a foreign concept in 2026, but back then we had a good number of regulars would would come into the store just to hang out. Most of them were teenagers from the area who liked metal, hard rock, goth, or alternative music. They'd spend an hour or two just chilling in the store, listening to whatever we were playing and chatting with each other and the employees about music. Of course, when they had money they would buy CDs. Sometimes, they would be in the mood to buy something but didn't know what, and would ask for recommendations. When this would happen, I would go out to the floor, grab a copy of Songs of Love and Hate by Godflesh, unwrap it, and pop it into the CD player. 

Strictly speaking, I was not allowed to do this. If the kid looking for a recommendation wasn't into it, the store would be stuck with a copy of an album we could no longer sell as new. But that never happened. I pulled this trick with that Godflesh album at least two or three times, and every time the person decided they wanted the album about 30 seconds into the first track, "Wake." The grinding industrial noise, thrumming base, and circular, crushing guitar that kick off that album are one hell of an intro to a band. It still hits just as hard today. 

A little more than 30 years later, Godflesh is back with their penultimate album, Decay. Recorded during the same sessions that produced their previous album, Purge, Decay and the upcoming, as-yet-announced/untitled final Godflesh album will be the last for the band because mastermind Justin Broadrick has been medically ordered to retire the band. Does Decay hold the same power as the band's earlier work to convert listeners to instant fans? Read on. 

Godflesh went on hiatus for many years as Justin Broadrick pursued his other musical pursuits, and the late period of the band's career has produced several strong releases. The first post-hiatus album, A World Lit Only by Fire, is the heaviest and most aggressive of this period. Post Self quieter and more introspective, while Purge is Godflesh at its most experimental. Broadrick has always had an interest in hip hop, dub, electronica, and more clubby music, and while those interests are usually expressed in his other projects, they are on display in Purge in interesting ways. By Godflesh standards, Purge is almost danceable, yet is still heavy and eclectic. It's an incredibly difficult album to summarize or categorize. 

While I typically try to evaluate albums on their own merits alone, it feels impossible to separate Decay from Purge, as we know they were recorded in the same sessions. Compared to the previous album, Decay much more streamlined, with a far more unified, static-drenched sound throughout. If Purge is Godflesh with Broadrick's club music interests incorporated, Decay is Godflesh incorporating another one of Broadrick's favored genres: ambient drone. 

This is not to say that Decay is a quiet album. It absolutely is not. The entire album is covered in a blanket of static from start to end, and in true Godflesh fashion, all tracks are built around simple, repeating rhythms. There is a hypnotic quality to the record, as these repeating rhythms make it quite easy to lock into the groove that propels the record ever forward. Both when using his commanding bark or his dreamier clean vocals, Broadrick's voice is always fairly submerged in the mix, letting the mechanical noise of the music come to the front as the primary focus. Even at his most guttural, I've always found Broadrick's vocals to be fairly intelligible, but here they're typically so far back in the mix that they feel like part of the soundscape and nothing more. There are a few sections where I'm legitimately unsure if I'm hearing vocals at all, even after repeated listens. 

As someone who went through a phase where I listened to a lot of experimental noise bands by groups like Namanax and Dissecting Table, Decay feels right in my wheelhouse. While Decay does have tracks that feel more like standard Godflesh tracks, ("Fear of Man," for example), the album works best if you embrace it as a cohesive mood piece. Opener "Master and Slave" and closing track "Consume Me" feel particularly connected - they're the fuzziest, most instrumentally driven tracks, creating a bookend effect around the other four tracks. 

Given this cohesive feel, Decay lacks the manic creativity of Purge, and won't immediately suck in new listeners like Songs of Love and Hate did back in my record store days. Long-term fans, however, won't be disappointed. Decay is a patient and focused album from a band that has never been afraid to push in unexpected directions. Godflesh essentially invented industrial metal, dabbled in shoegaze and electronica, released multiple dub remix albums, and otherwise pushed the boundaries of what a "metal" band can be. There is one one single way to encapsulate what a Godflesh album sounds like. 

And yet, one of the things that struck me while listening to Decay is that there is no other band that sounds like Godflesh. There are bands that sound inspired by Godflesh, but nothing that sounds exactly like them. Godflesh's music has taken many forms since their inception, but no matter which avenue they're exploring, I can always identify their music after only a few notes. So while I don't believe that the moody, drone-heavy Decay would make instant converts like they did so many years ago in the record store, they remain a wholly unique band, and we are lucky to have Decay and whatever album comes next to close off their storied career. 

Godflesh's Decay is out September 25 via Relapse Records.