Completists who haven't heard Justin Broadrick's Greymachine project (with Broadrick, Dave Cochrane, Diarmuid Dalton and Aaron Turner) are missing a vital strain of sludgy guitar-driven stuff that, for Mr. Broadrick, comes off downright jammy on tracks like “Wasted”, while “Vultures Descend” is downright terrifying. There are also a couple tracks that creep into sleekly industrial drum sequences but this is not Jesu. Greymachine seems most at home stranded between a guitar storm and a prickly wall of feedback and a whole bunch of bleating that sounds like a synthesizer chained down in a dungeon begging for mercy.
In his own words, Broadrick warned against any comparisons to Jesu. (How 'bout Godflesh?)
“I am making it an issue of warning people that are fans of Jesu, especially those that only listen to Jesu from my work, to approach with extreme caution,” Broadrick sternly told Noisecreep. “I didn't want this project promoted in any way off of the name of Jesu because I'd like people to be informed that if you were into Jesu first, this is a million miles away to be honest. And that was obviously the intention.”
Greymachine's intention, as Justin described it, is “to prove that I have not lost any of that zeal for extremely hateful sounding music”. It's been some time since Broadrick has been associated with aggression, despite beginning his musical career with Napalm Death and founding the industrial Godflesh. However, Greymachine is his path back to all of that.
Greymachine, “Vultures Descend”
Disconnected came out early this month on Hydra Head. Listen to the whole album here. Buy it here.
