Neurosis / Godflesh / Yob (live at The Forum)

London
20 July 2019

It’s 6:30 — SIX FUCKING THIRTY — on a Saturday evening and I have never seen The Forum so packed so early (in fact, I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever seen it this early at all). The place is an oven. Fortunately, metal crowds tend to be the nicest crowds, so a room filled with this many daytime drinkers isn’t likely to erupt into violence. Except sonically, of course. For tonight we are here to see the triple-headed monster that is Yob, Godflesh and Neurosis, a veritable Cerberus of extreme music.

And everyone’s into it. That lineup is so perfect that the place is already packed to capacity, which will be a theme for the evening. Nobody’s bailing out after Yob or Godflesh, nobody’s skipping the supports just to catch Neurosis. Everyone’s in it for the long haul. Everyone’s committed to the intensity.

First to take the stage are Yob, who in spite of their name resemble nothing so much as barbarian cave wizards, and it soon becomes apparent they are here to take us into space. Although the vocals come probably the closest to traditional metal we’re gonna get all night, they start off like a far, far heavier Jane’s Addiction before spiralling off into the cosmos. This is music so dense and heavy that it warps the mind through sheer gravitational pull, dragging you through the cosmos like some Lovecraftian wanderer.

From Yob’s mental mind assault to the raw, brutalist physicality of Godflesh. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve seen Godflesh over the years, but one thing I do remember is that they’ve never once disappointed. If “solid” didn’t sound like damning with faint praise, I’d call them solid, because, well, they are. Solid as a brick wall, solid as a car crusher. THAT kind of solid.

In a week when (not that we know it at the time) we’re going to lose Rutger Hauer, it’s worth remembering that Justin Broadrick once released an entire concept album dedicated to Salute Of The Jugger. And as we head into a post-Brexit / Trump apocalypse of our own making, Godflesh seem more timely than ever. What is it to be human in a post-human industrialised society where we are expected to be nothing more than cogs in a machine? It’s FUCKING LOUD, that’s what it is. Broadrick and GC Green bring the noise over the relentless mechanoid blast, and you’re forced to dance. Body music for sure.

And with the mind and body dealt with, that just leaves the soul. And the soul needs cleansing. A friend of mine once described a Neurosis show as like being stripped naked. But it goes deeper than that. Over the next hour and a half they blow through you like the bleakest wind, stripping you to the bone and shredding your very essence. Noah Landis is punishing his keyboard rack like he’s in 1991 Nine Inch Nails, but the rest of the band are largely still, channelling a spiritual tempest right through you.

Everyone’s transfixed, deer in the headlights. Something about Neurosis always makes me think of a battlefield strewn with corpses, but tonight the warriors are very much alive. Of course, they’ve played with Jarboe, and rumour has it Michael Gira was thinking of recruting them as his backing band in the 1990s when Swans split, so intensity is a given. Neurosis are the sound of self-examination, of the mediæval cruelties we inflict on ourselves.

It’s cathartic. And draining. Utterly exhausting.

But yes. I feel cleansed.

-Words: Justin Farrington-
-Pictures: Dave Pettit-