10 excoriating bursts from the same Birmingham manufacturing machinery that took Tony Iommi’s fingertips (and inadvertently helped create heavy metal), Godflesh’s full-length debut incinerated its influences to fuel its rage. “Like Rats” wasted no time establishing the program, taking the strident post-punk of Killing Joke and the menacing industrial of Skinny Puppy and grinding them into sharp shards of glass and metal that Justin Broadrick spat right out again. Chained to their drum machine, the central trio tried to break free from a variety of restraints: geographical, financial, societal. They did not succeed. They did, however, prime the pump for a whole swath of devastating acts, from Fear Factory to Neurosis.

– Jeff Treppel