Godflesh, with local openers ISYA and Mother Juno, played Conduit in Winter Park, Florida on July 2. This was, as advertised, the only Florida date for the venerable industrial metal duo of lead guitarist and drum programmer Justin K. Broadrick and bassist B.C. Green. At the end of the set, Broadrick told the audience it had been 10 years since their last date in the area. They clearly played to an appreciative audience, including myself.  First off, I want to thank Endoxa Booking and Conduit for this get. Nabbing Godflesh for their only Florida date is a GET. While it’s fun to travel for shows, there’s a sense of connection to a wider community when a larger act plays near you.

One of the great things about the bookers was that they got two Florida groups to open. Giving local acts a slot opening for a band as legendary as Godflesh had to be a big moment for openers Isya and Mother Juno. Of the two, Isya seemed more up to the challenge. A one-man bass playing and cybernoise assault, Isya came out bathed in green laser projections surrounded by smoke. From the set up on stage, someone might be forgiven for thinking that it would be a guy twiddling knobs on his drum machines and samplers. As soon as they deep throated the mic, surrounded everyone with slamming drum loops, threw down a throbbing baseline, everything changed. They ran back and forth around the stage with intensity and purpose. Isya knew how to command the stage as a one-man act. They made twiddling the knobs on their drum machines and samplers compelling because you wanted to know how they would assault your ears next. At some point, the green lasers gave way to a hellish strobing red. The benign relaxation instructions played in between songs became sinister dialogue. Eventually there was so much fog, they began haunting the stage disappearing into it and returning unpredictably. By the end when commanding his Roland SP-404 SX and bathed in a strobing white light, Isya set the stage for an intense rest of the night.

Then Mother Juno, an Orlando local, performed. I am sure that for some people this was their thing. It really wasn’t mine. It was another one-person act. They started like Isya pre-smoking the stage. Illuminated by a single red bulb, it consisted mostly of a guy dancing and screaming to his own industrial music. He did encourage the audience to dance and at the least the music was danceable. He apologized two songs into his set that his lighting rig broke. At one point while I took notes for this review, something went by my leg. When you’re at a show, people bump into you all the time in weird places. I didn’t think much of it until I felt something strapped to my leg. What I had missed was that the performer had crawled into the crowd! I turned around and there they were. It was certainly the highlight of that set. Eventually I thought it just became a guy prancing in the dark and smoke to menacing industrial dance music. I am sure someone was thrilled to see that.

Finally, there was Godflesh. To get this out of the way, there were a few things that were disappointing. Before they came out to play, a projector was set up to play video that let us know this set was only going to be 60 minutes. Additionally, I spoiled myself looking up online that the setlist for the band was pretty much the same each night. Looking at the set list, there wasn’t a whole lot from Purge, their latest album which I enjoy immensely and one I reviewed here. So knowing it would be a short set and knowing what they would play was a little disappointing. There would be no surprise covers or extended jams. However, as someone who has never seen them live, this was the perfect the set list. It was a phenomenal selection of their best material from across their career with a smattering of deep cuts from various EPs and singles. Also I’m seeing Godflesh, one of the most important and influential bands in all of extreme music, on their only stop in Florida. Those are small complaints to make.

Justin K. Broadrick and B.C. Green came out to “The Model” by Kraftwerk. As Broadrick got his laptop and rig set up on side of the stage, Green, on the other side, started grooving to the German electronic pioneers’ classic song. It was a delightful moment reminding you that even as serious as their music is, Godflesh are still people. For an audience dressed mostly in black and the occasional fetish gear, Broadrick and Green both came out in rather unassuming fashion. They both wore khakis (Broadrick was in shorts) and sensible footwear (I’m pretty sure Green wore Birkenstocks). Yet as soon as they started performing you forgot it. Broadrick looked like he had just come off the mountain to deliver a sermon of heavy music and boy did he deliver. Godflesh was a well-oiled machine ready to destroy the ears of their audience. 

They opened with Purge’s opener “Nero” with a screen projection of fire behind them. Onscreen was a mix of images that clearly inspired by their album covers. Honestly, I wish I had gotten to talk to Broadrick and Green to find out what they used to make their cinematic mix tape. Something that’s apparent live that occasionally gets lost a little in the mix of the albums is how much Green’s bass contributes to the menace of Godflesh’s sound. Hearing Green’s bass playing next to Broadrick’s guitar shredding reinforced how much it’s a contributor to their sound. Green remained a steady, unflappable presence through the set. As the set progressed, Broadrick, who claimed in an interview to be descended from witches, transformed into a shaman. While complaints can be lobbied that Godflesh don’t veer too far off from what’s on the records, I think it can be said that Broadrick experiments with whatever aggression and fury he has, he clearly knows how to channel it out through his performance. 

Whatever energy Broadrick and Green gave to the audience, the audience returned it tenfold. This was clearly an audience primed to have metal gods play in their town.  The highlight of the audience interaction with the music would have had to be when everyone (myself included), started pogoing during “Dead Head,” a song from Streetcleaner which sounded better live. Yes, everyone lost their shit as soon as the sample that intros the song “Streetcleaner” came on. I screamed the chorus to “Like Rats” along with the rest of the crowd. The best parts of the performance were with the lesser-known songs off the EPs where Broadrick could shred wildly during songs like “Weak Flesh.” In songs like those, the way Broadrick and Green played you could hear the way genres like shoegaze and dub played into the band’s sound.  By the end of the show, fog enveloped the stage so much you could barely see either. It was like the music consumed both of them so that all you had was the sounds coming out of the amps. It was a phenomenal night.

For me, this was an important show to attend not just because it was the only Florida date for Godflesh. When I started exploring heavier and more extreme music in the early part of last decade, the double release of the EP Decline and Fall and the full length of A World Lit Only By Fire cemented what I wanted out of heavy music. Godflesh was the perfect transition for someone who spent their twenties listening to post punk and post punk revival and noise rock and who was about to transition into extreme music for middle age.  Broadrick’s ability to simultaneously wring agony and fury with every guitar note and programming the most aggressive synthetic rhythm section since Steve Albini with Big Black spoke for itself. Meanwhile, Green’s bass playing anchored everything and provided a bridge between the dance influenced post punk bass lines of Simon Gallup and Peter Hook with Geezer Butler’s thunderous playing for Black Sabbath. I missed them when I lived in Boston so finally seeing them live was a validating experience. This was the sweatiest I’ve been at a show in ages. Heck, if anyone doubts the power of endorphins, my body felt like garbage before they played and by the end, I thought I could take on the world. I really hope this isn’t the last time Godflesh plays Florida. 

— D. Morris