If you’ve ever wondered if there’s a British equivalent to Detroit’s classic heavy metal scene, then there’s an answer ready and waiting for you.
Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Napalm Death and Judas Priest all hail from the beating metal heart of the country known as the West Midlands, and it’s no coincidence that both there and Detroit have industrial pasts that lend themselves to the heavy rock sound that has emerged from both.
One of the Midlands’ most recent outfits off the conveyor belt are God Damn, a rude and raw trio who grab your attention in the same as a swift slap to the face. Their videos are outrageous, their onstage antics often even more so, but, most importantly, their music will stay with you for a long time.
Here’s a little more about the band the NME described as ‘’Sabbath having a screaming row with Nirvana"
Formation and early years
The West Midlands doesn’t make the headlines too often. An unfashionable region mocked for its broad accent, it has few recent claims to fame: a couple of famous football teams, for example, and a title as the luckiest area for lottery jackpot wins in the UK. Yet its hard rock music scene has consistently produced global stars, and when God Damn set out in 2010, they wanted to add their names to that golden list.
The first few years were rocky. They lost the services of guitarist Dave Copson who suffered severe injuries following an accident, and they only managed to produce a couple of haphazard but entertaining EPs in that period – the excellent Heavy Money being a highlight, with a fittingly superb video to boot.
Then, after a series of blistering gigs across the UK, things started to slide into place. Their fearsome sound, powered by a series of exceptional performances by drummer Ash Weaver, was starting to make people sit up and take notice. A debut album was on the horizon.
Vultures & Everything Ever
It’s easy to flip on the band’s 2015 debut Vultures and assume that you’re in for 50-odd minute mix of head-banging grunge, goth and death metal – but that wouldn’t do it justice.
While much of the album is a good example of what early Nirvana and Jesus Lizard’s lovechild would sound like, tracks like Skeleton and Sullen Fun show the band’s charming softer side, with sweet acoustic riffs and delicate harmonies.
These are balanced out by the likes of the pulsating When the Wind Blows and We Don’t Like You’, two tracks that will shake you out of a Monday-morning stupor in no time. Quite how two people can make so much noise is a mystery that hangs around several bands nowadays, including Royal Blood and Black Keys, but God Damn take it to extremes.
It wasn’t just the fans flocking to their shows that were on board, either. The Foo Fighters, The Cribs and Wolf Alice were just three of the bands lining up to take God Damn on tour with them as a support act, and the group took in famous venues such as the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, as well as the Reading & Leeds festival and the legendary SXSW in the USA.
Buoyed by their success, and with the addition of guitarist and backing vocalist James Brown the following year, the group launched another assault on the senses with Everything Ever, their follow-up album. Described as containing ‘upbeat but horrible, nasty songs’ by Rough Trade, the record has an added edge to it with tracks such as chaotic Again Again standing out from the cacophony of sound.
God Damn – a self-titled release for the 2020s
Unusually for God Damn and their fierce sound, things went quiet for a while. The band embarked on a semi-hiatus as they reassessed their focus: several years passed.
Imagine their fans' delight, then, when they announced a new album, along with two shiny new recruits in the form of Hannah Al Shemmeri on keyboard and Rob Graham on guitar, on social media in late 2019.
The record bursts out of the blocks with Dreamers, a lung-busting 3-minute surge of energy that has shades of Melvins in their prime. The album then flows beautifully between tracks as we’re treated to the delights of the anthemic Whip Goes The Crack and We Are One, and the epic Satellite Prongs – a 9-minute stoner rock classic that has just about everything.
If four albums and several EPS’ worth of consistently superb content isn’t enough for you, then there’s more: the band recently announced the release of a fifth album, Raw Coward, set to for a September 2021 release date. Littered with tracks with names such as Radiation Acid Queen and Dog Sh*t in the Autumn Leaves, it promises to be anything but boring.
