Godflesh: “Selfless” (Earache)

The bass guitar on Selfless makes Killing Joke sound like Shirley Temple. It’s a real growling, prowling sound, akin to a lion with a sore throat purring malcontentedly. And from the opening ‘Xnoybis’ to the closing ‘Go Spread Your Wings’, this brooding rhythm moves you psychotically and erotically.

Godflesh make the kind of music American hardcore would have become if it hadn’t been watered down into marketable Grunge for middle-class white slackers. The gruelling beat is relentless but it’s also cleverly intermingled with some quirky off-beat and low-down mean guitar breaks. ‘Black Boned Angel’ shimmies like a revengeful wraith loaded up with burdensome responsibilities. ‘Anything Is Mine’ is suitably rousing without being emptily anthemic. ‘Crush My Soul’ and ‘Heartless’ are nihilistic to the core, yet still vehemently defiant.

Selfless isn’t just an example of flogging the dead horse of punk. It is thoroughly contemporary and extremely dark and sinister without ever being melodramatic. Godflesh allow room for understatement after they’ve first of all wiped your prissy mind clean of all its garbage. And that bass is an evil turn-on. What place does the self have in the midst of such a sonic onslaught?

• Patrick Brennan