Review Summary: The future never sounded so far away.
Punishing mechanical sounds that repeat in a classic Justin Broadrick fashion... So beautiful and primal. I can't get over this album recently and for good reason. Somehow 1994 is sounding more futuristic than 2023, which is crazy to think that this album is almost 30 years old. Many albums that came out during this same era are not aging as well as God's The Anatomy of Addiction. Of course God was not a major commercial success during their time of activity, albeit the band still enjoyed a close-knit fan base that stuck by them and helped launch many of the band members careers into a highly respected position. What better demonstration of God's ability to create extreme music than their final album?
And of course the ambiance is not strictly in one direction. Eeriness and despair creep into the songs with amazing guitar work and complex composition structure that leaves much to be desired. It just makes not sense to me that not more people are waking up to the enlightened heaviness of God's catalog which still remains to be one of heavy industrial music's hidden treasures.
If you want to hear a track by track review... well if you listen to the album you'll know why this is unnecessary. I'm just not going to do that right now because I'm just in awe of the production sound which still seems un replicable in modern times. Sure there is lots of cool electronic sounds being populated in music currently but nothing that is this diverse while still creating addictive groups that electrify the soul.
Also, John Zorn's sax work must've been some of the first of its kind. Many times using multiple channels for creating very professionally composed passages. These passages consist largely of repeating notes in flurries to build crescendo's of mysterious wonder right before the unveiling of Justin's bone crushing riffs and Kevin Martin's organic yells or apathetic echoes. A very nice aspect of this album is that we get to hear Justin's guitar work with vocal work that uses effects and vox much more sparingly than other Jesu or Godflesh albums. The result is a cohesive work that although is almost two hours long in length, the album still provides the listener with lots to take a bite from. Kevin's production is immaculate here which is surprising as this was early in his career, proto The Bug.
Of course there will also be listeners who are not accustomed to Godflesh which may make this project stand out quite far from the rest of Kevin's catalog. I would argue though that The Anatomy of Addiction is riddled with dub influence and hip hop breakdowns, especially for when different passages of songs segues into one another. If it's not John's sax playing that build up a track than it almost always will be the more psychedelic proto dubstep approach that Kevin would continue to employ for his other projects and albums.
The weakest parts are when some of the drones do linger around for slightly too long (notably on Bloodstream) although they still provide meditation and a strange Hermetic approach that soothes while also providing some interesting conceptual elements. I personally don't find these segments to throw off the experience of The Anatomy of Addiction which in many ways is intended to be appreciated like a concept. And for this it makes sense why so many people would glance in the other direction, not caring to attend to the strangeness that this album helps to bring out of it's listeners. This is not simply a rock album to thrash to but an inward journey that carries heavy dub elements and captures the essence of the freedom in experimentation. If you can accept this quality about this behemoth of an album than I think you will find the enjoyment that is God.
