[.ca] In All Languages

Not bad at all:
This is my first foray into the industrial realm of music. The closest I have come is Fear Factory and Arcturus. Other than those two, everything I have is either death metal or black metal. So I didn't have any expectations listening to these two albums. The only thing I knew about Godflesh was that they were the innovators of the industrial genre and that their best albums were Streetcleaner and Pure. At first, listening to these cd's was a chore. I kept waiting for everything to explode and then start jamming. It never happened. A lot of the songs are very repetitive in that the riff just repeats itself and the same lyrics are repeated. However, the highlights were the songs from Streetcleaner, Pure, and Us & Them, I thought. Godflesh followers will probably like the second disc with remixes since they already have everything from the first one. But me being new to Godflesh, I found the first disc to be better. It took quite a while to sit through the entire second disc. Will this retrospective convince me to buy Godflesh's back catalogue and the new Hymns in the future? Probably not. Will I search for other bands in this genre? No. Is this a worthy purchase for someone looking for something different and challenging? Yes. Are the two cd's good music? Definitely.

Has a few choice tidbits:
Not much to add as I agree with the other reviews. Its a decent cd if you are new to the band, although I would just tell you to buy Streetcleaner and start there. Disk 2 may be interesting for existing fans like myself that have pretty much everything, but there isn't much there that isn't fairly easy to find. Except for 2 remixes from Us and Them which are quite decent and apparently unreleased, and Love is a Dog... which is a track well worth having. The Crush My Soul remix is an edited version off the CMS E.P., so you should still buy that EP if you ever see it for that and the Xnynobis Dub remix. The two Peel sessions tracks, particularly Pulp, are a great addition, I'm glad to have heard them. Newspite is a great remix off of an Earache comp, well worth the listen.The other remixes are on alblums you would already have, nothing new there. On disk 1, the "remastered" Pure tracks are actually not really improved and I think they may sound worse. Sounds like they were just spatialized to make them sound wider and consequently thinner. Couple of tracks e.g. Like Rats are a bit edited in the intros and outros, the fades are bit sharper. Not a major deal though. The only reason to buy this alblum except for the above mentioned hard to find tracks is if you want to listen to a medley of 'Flesh and you don't want to carry all the CDs with you. You decide if the price is worth the convenience.

Godflesh Retrospective:
Well, in the case of Godflesh, you can't really call this a "greatest hits". What hits? "In all Languages" is a great retrospective of Godflesh's music, though. This CD would be great for a Godflesh novice, who may have heard of the band, but not know much about them. I can't argue with the track choices (especially since my favorite song, "Flowers", is on disc 2). Disc one is all previously released, but disc 2 has a couple of surprises for any hardcore fan who wants to buy this CD to complete their collection. Also, if you've been a Godflesh fan since the Streetcleaner days (as I have), it's great to put on disc one and listen to the subtle evolution that the band's sound has gone through. I have every Godflesh disc (except for that elusive "Crush My Soul"), and I still feel that this CD was a worthy purchase.

Disc Two is worth the price alone...:
I have been a GF fan since a buddy of mine gave me his Streetcleaner CD back in 92. If you favor Streetcleaner, Pure and Selfless, then go out and get this CD. The remixes alone are worth the price of this 2 Disc set. If you prefer the 7 minute durge Goflesh over Techno Animal-esq Flesh, you'll dig it.

A Sonic Boot Stomping Yr Face Forever--You'll Like It:
If you're anything like me, the nu metal craze that's been goosesteppin' its way across the nations is a nightmare from which you are trying to awake, and the mo' money mo' problems jiggy-rap world, cleanly throwing its cash in your dirty face, puts you dreamlessly to sleep. Need a wake up fix of ultra-heavy guitar music and skull-crushing beats? -- look no further than Godflesh, one of the original bands that brought the two together, minus the bullsh*t commercial factor. You should have no trouble waking up completely from your record industry nod in the presence of their music. In All Languages, a double CD retrospective anthology covering selections culled from Godflesh's discography since their breached birth in 1988 -- except their swan song album Hymns (which was released just after this anthology) -- testify to the potent virulance of their musical vision and the years of sonic mastery accomplished. More modern music than we might realize has been directly or indirectly infected with their overpowering strain. . .you're probably already sick with a debilitating imitation of it, and just don't know it; no names. Marrying the influences of Throbbing Gristle's ambient noise, the sludging heaviness of Cop-era Swans, Killing Joke's rhythmic complexity, and the buzzsaw blues of Black Sabbath -- Godflesh's dark and ferocious body of work became the benchmark and blueprint for the grindcore movement -- that's right, the heaviest of the heavy. Toss into this noisy hydra lyrics that passionately take up Nietzschean values decrying a betrayal of personal independence for the thumb-sucking "herd mentality" and you've got Godflesh's basic thrust. I guess hailing from Birmingham, England, where Black Sabbath were born and bred, gave them a predisposition toward music that lusts for the ever-harder, ever-louder. Vocalist/guitar strangler/beat manipulator Justin Broadrick and bassist G.C. Green, like their hometown forefathers, show a similar capacity to take stripped down guitar riffs and pack them dense with so much life, you can almost hear blood running through them. And Green, not to be minimized, has one of the most distinct bass sounds in rock -- imagine a humming tanker truck scraping the wall of an underground tunnel and you can begin to approximate the impact of it. Add the powerfully cold and precise big beats of Broadrick's drum machine, or the "inner city" breakbeats he samples, and the sound will crumble you like a detonated building. They even throw a live drummer into the usual undertow during the Songs Of Love And Hate-era tracks, as well as the not included Hymns material, to beat down your already pummelled perceptions to powder, as a jackhammer bonus. What are you waiting for, a painless invitation?

• Avalanche Master Song
• Like Rats
• Streetcleaner
• Slateman
• Slavestate
• Mothra
• Spite
• Pure
• Xynobis
• Crush My Soul
• Anything Is Mine
• Circle of Shit
• Frail
• I Me Mine
• Internal
• Love Is a Dog From Hell
• Crush My Soul \oUltramixedit\c
• Flowers
• Tiny Tears \oBBC Session\c
• Pulp \oBBC Session\c
• Newspite
• Empyreal 2
• Blind
• Slavestate \oRadioslave\c
• Gift from Heaven \oBreakbeat\c
• Xynobis \oClubdubedit\c
• Witchhunt \oTyrant RMX\c
• Us and Them \oDefensive RMX\c