Songs of Love and Hate (Godflesh album)


Songs of Love and Hate is the fourth studio album by English industrial metal band Godflesh. Released on 20 August 1996 through Earache Records, it is the band's first album to feature live drums, played by drummer Bryan Mantia, and a more traditional heavy metal sound, generally lacking the experimental and mechanical elements of previous releases. The cover is a photograph of Cancer Alley, Louisiana.
An accompanying dub-inspired remix album, Love and Hate in Dub, was released in 1997. Both records were reissued by Earache in 2009.

Music and composition

The choice to replace Godflesh's signature drum machines with Bryan Mantia as a human drummer stemmed from Justin Broadrick's growing dissatisfaction with the limitation of mechanical percussion. After initially making Songs of Love and Hate with machines, Broadrick decided that there was a lack of dynamic range and groove. About the search for the proper drummer, Broadrick said, "The aim was to get a drummer who plays like a machine, but we wanted a feeling of movement and motion as opposed to a machine where it’s very, very static."
According to AllMusic's Jason Birchmeier, Songs of Love and Hate conforms to a more traditional heavy metal sound, being "less mechanical and more fluid than preceding albums." Most of the tracks are on the verse-chorus-verse form. On the album's sound, Meier further commented, "The monolithic riffs grind harmoniously as they never have before, with Broadrick's gigantic guitar tone bulging through the speakers with rude, distorted salience while Green's bass guitar grinds with more prominence than one can nearly handle. To make the sounds even more extreme, B. Mantia smashes and hammers his drums with rabid aggression, instilling the sense of anger than no machine can possibly accomplish." Peter Buckley, the author of The Rough Guide to Rock, considered Mantia's drumming as "occasionally funky".
In 2018, on the tour supporting Godflesh's 2017 album Post Self, the band performed "Gift from Heaven" live. The song had never been played before, and it was quickly dropped from the set for, according to Broadrick, not working in a live setting.

Critical reception

critic Jason Birchmeier said that "never before has the group rocked so hard, sounding tighter as a unit and more human than ever before." Alternative Press wrote, "Imagine a confluence between Black Sabbath and Wu-Tang Clan's rhythms." Valerie Potter of Vox called the album "challenging and savagely satisfying". In his Reissue Review, The Quietus' Mark Eglinton, who viewed the album as "accessible", described it as "a fulcrum for Godflesh", further writing that it "stands resolute as a unique snapshot of a shift in the Godflesh trajectory, as well as being their most multi-faceted release." In reviewing a compilation including Songs of Love and Hate, Eric Schneider of AllMusic said the album was arguably Godflesh's most straightforward release.

Accolades

Track listing

Notes