Godflesh - Hymns

Hymns was the final album by Godflesh before they originally broke up in 2002. It seems to apply the no-nonsense aesthetic from records such as Pure and Slavestate to the band's later, more "nu metal" kinda sound as found on Songs Of Love And Hate and even parts of Us & Them. What's also quite nice to note is that Ted Parsons, who drummed for Swans on a fair number of their seminal recordings, is the drummer here. This is also the second, and final, Godflesh studio album to feature a real live drummer, and their first after being released from Earache.

I find Hymns is often overlooked. There are many Godflesh gems here, such as the opening belter "Defeated", which slows to a groaning crawl that really drags out the agonizing pinched harmonics. "Voidhead" is a painful listen (in a good way), taking the repetition of industrial into the nu-metal world kicking and screaming. Then, towards the end you've got the hat-trick of the venomous "Vampires", the ridiculously heavy "Antihuman" and the soaring "Regal" soothing you just before the skull-bashing closer, "Jesu".

Being a Godflesh record, there was a 50/50 chance that the cover art was going to be fucking shite. It kinda looks like it was just pulled off a Google image search, and the booklet doesn't really elaborate much either. The End Records and Music On Vinyl also did everybody a solid and put this out on vinyl in 2013, leaving Us & Them as the only Godflesh album not available on wax. Surely drum and bass belongs on vinyl, right? If I ever win the lottery I'll finance the repress myself, if Digby lets me buy the rights. Anyway, I'm rambling. I'll fuck off now. Listen to this:

Staind - Break The Cycle

Since I began listing not only my vinyl but my entire music collection on Lines in Wax, I knew the day would come where I would have to touch upon the questionable purchases I made when I was younger. Today that day has finally come. Scorn at nu-metal all you like, but I actually like this CD. I actually prefer it to say, I dunno, Deathcrush by Mayhem. Well, maybe not prefer. Wrong choices of words. But I find it more listenable.

I bought this when I was 11 or 12 years old. The live version of "Outside" was the most played video on Kerrang! TV and that's probably what made me buy Break The Cycle. Staind were quite lovey-dovey so I remember being pretty suprised at how heavy some of the songs were. What Staind have become or what they did with their career is not what I am discussing here, only what I am experienced with here on this album. A good half of this stadium-filling nu-metal record actually contains pretty good songwriting. Despite the chart success, both "Outside" and "It's Been A While" are extremely well crafted and catchy songs. Opener "Open Your Eyes" is a fairly grim affair, and "Pressure" is geniously heavy for something of this nature.

Other songs on the record don't really amount to much, but even the terribly angsty "For You" has one hell of a riff, and the uninspiring "Fade" is actually pretty thoughtfull under the boring fuzz. Staind as a group used baritone guitars and five-string basses before it was particularly well-known in mainstream metal, and this definitely contributed to the heavier-than-usual sound here. Sometimes it feels like the music is too heavy for the words. I read that somewhere before in an article about the band Kroh, but I definitely think it applies here better.

Hate me for writing about this if you will, but I don't particularly care. There's a lot worse to come! Ha Ha!