Greymachine

Disconnected

Hot fun in the bummertime | Hydra Head

Because Justin Broadrick and Aaron Turner apparently have nothing else going on between Jesu and Isis and the, uh, 20-plus other side projects between them, Turner felt it was high time to give Broadrick a respite from his endless stream of Hydra Head remixes and collaborate on a new project—with Dave Cochrane (Head of David, God, Ice) and Diarmuid Dalton (Jesu, Godflesh) to boot.

Leaving the familiar territory of Jesu and Isis, let’s talk about some of Broadrick’s most overlooked and novel work: Ice and God. Back in the mid ’90s, Broadrick, with help from bassist Cochrane and vocalist/horn player Kevin Martin (now the helmsman of power electronic dub/reggae/dancehall act the Bug), did some amazing psychotic tribal-metal noise in Ice and the even-kookier God. This writer is beyond stoked to hear threads of the same dark, industrialized noise as Ice, God and early Godflesh being rekindled here. Crushing distorted bass (it sounds like the strings are so slack, they’re hanging off the neck) locks horns with claustrophobic noise (feedback, fuzz, layers and layers of looping screams, layers of delayed droning guitars, electronic flitters and crunches) and skyscraping guitar wallops only Turner and Broadrick could helm. Whoa!

This shit is uncompromising and incredibly adroit in its maneuvering of every little electronic detritus flying about. Take, for example, “When Attention Just Isn’t Enough,” where a farty distorto-bass flutter gets captured by delay and sprung back in your face for maximum cru-cru-cru-creepy/dis-dis-dis-disturbing effect, or the bad-acid jazz of the God-like track “Wasted,” which mixes all kinds of electronic paranoia with titanium-plated wah-wah freakouts! Anyone sick of Jesu’s rainbow-chasing sweetness will shit bricks over Broadrick’s revisiting of crushing darkness found herein.

—Shawn Bosler

Username

Password

Forgot password

Register new account