Godflesh & Prurient Perform At The El Rey

Review by Lisa Burke, live photos & videos by Matt Nielson

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October 2nd 2015, El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles CA: 1988 was quite a significant year in terms of the industrial metal movement as it included the origin of Nine Inch Nails as well as Godflesh. Last Friday October 2nd 2015, a good 27 years later, I had my first live Godflesh experience on their ‘A World Lit Only By Fire’ tour. On this night they played at The El Rey, and with one opening experimental noise act called Prurient.

I haven’t been to the El Rey in probably a year, and with my previous week’s metal shows mainly taking place at The Fonda my first thought upon entering was that the sound was definitely not up to the cleanliness I was used to. That said, I suppose it added an extra element to the uncomfortable noise happening on stage from the one man show called Prurient.

Ian Dominick Fernow is the mastermind behind this madness and started out his career in the late ’90s with a microphone and an amplifier, then graduated to a laptop and synthesizer.
I’ve been to art school and seen many performance art pieces similar to this, and while part of me can appreciate whatever message he is trying to convey that flew over my head, I really don’t like my ears to bleed for more than six minutes at a time. From the mechanically enhanced screams to the high-pitched screech of the amplifier sound I started contemplating the idea of crawling under a rock till it was over.

Prurient
Prurient

I suppose he does this artsy noise adventure better than the next guy to attempt it, however I still wasn’t overly impressed, and it is definitely not my cup of tea because after one high-pitched note that cup would have shattered and spilled my tea all over the floor. Also, on a side tangent just for the record my favorite experimental noise band that started decades earlier without computers and developed into four guys with four laptops is, and will always be, Germany’s own Kraftwerk.

Prurient video footage from this show:

Moving in the right direction and into a better hour of the evening, Godflesh took the stage, which consists of a bass player and guitarst/vocalist with all the rest of the sound from a ‘machine’ or recorded drum tracks. Their setup was interesting with the use of a video enhanced backdrop flipping through various compelling images. If you’ve seen Skinny Puppy they do similar background screen imagery and also mix in three-dimensional visual imagery as well. I love this combination as it actually makes the whole experience feel surreal. I’m also a fan of projecting onto the people as well, but let’s not get carried away as this isn’t necessary for an industrial/experimental band such as Godflesh.

Godflesh
Godflesh

In the beginning of their set I was slightly disturbed by the ‘dirty’ speaker sound that I like to point fingers at the venue for, shortly thereafter I got sucked into the unique drone sounds, and interesting backing drum tracks. If you don’t appreciate what is going on here with these two it can start sounding too repetitive which in turn can reach borderline boring territory, however it’s really all just part of their ritual and old-school grungy industrial roots. I prefer their ’90s industrial sound, of course, because it’s more nostalgic for me, but I enjoyed the whole set and fell completely into the groove by the end. The crowd at this show was a little off from your typical metal show, and there’s no mosh pit dance party in the land of the drone, however the t-shirt fashion award prize at this event goes directly to the dude in the Alf shirt. It totally helped bring that vibe of the late ’80s back in more ways than one. Godflesh had actually disbanded after 2002, yet they made a return in 2010 and it’s good to see them playing shows again. There is definitely something to appreciate live here that you don’t understand completely when just listening to a recording. Most likely this is due to the probability that their strength lies in the fact that they are a duo with the sound of a quintet. In conclusion and because you don’t hear it enough, life is short so get out there and see all industrial rock/metal and cat eating alien TV shows that you possibly can.

Godflesh video footage from this show:

Set List:
01. New Dark Ages
02. Deadend
03. Shut Me Down
04. Life Giver Life Taker
05. Carrion
06. Towers Of Emptiness
07. Christbait Rising
08. Streetcleaner
09. Spite
10. Crush My Soul
Encore:
11. Like Rats

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