Selfless (album)

Selfless is the third studio album by English industrial metal band Godflesh. It was released on 26 September 1994 in Europe and on 18 October 1994 through Earache and Columbia Records. Being the band's major label debut, the record features a more conventional and rock oriented sound compared to Godflesh's previous releases. It spawned two singles, "Xnoybis" and "Crush My Soul". The music video for the latter was directed by photographer Andres Serrano. At the 2018 Roadburn Festival, Selfless was performed live in its near entirety for the first time. "Go Spread Your Wings", the album's 23 minute closing track, was substituted with "Messiah" and "Merciless", two songs recorded in the same sessions as Selfless.

Since Selfless and its preceding EP Merciless (1994) saw Godflesh with a major record label, the band was assigned a professional to do final mastering. Bob Ludwig was called in to enhance the pre existing masters. Godflesh frontman Justin Broadrick spoke positively on this experience, saying that Ludwig's changes were improvements. The album reportedly takes its name from the John Coltrane record, Selflessness: Featuring My Favorite Things (1969),

Broadrick described Selfless as his "rock & roll" album. Nevertheless, on the record's sound, AllMusic's Ned Raggett states: "The rough, clipped, lock and load style of the band remained essentially unchanged at heart Broadrick's brawling, echoed vocals, the sheer impact of the guitars and drum machine beats, Green's uneasy bass. Still, some of the singing is Broadrick's most conventional, some of the riffing almost epically classic rock, and the technical/digital pulse at the heart of the band sufficiently straightforward enough not to annoy those who can't stand the idea of a non human drummer." Trouser Press reported that the album drops the previous techno inclinations for "slow motion Melvins meltdown surrealism and variations on Chicago skronk ratchetry." In 2018, Broadrick called the track "Anything Is Mine" a blatant rip off of Celtic Frost. Broadrick considered Selfless the "last pure record" that Godflesh made until reforming and releasing 2014's A World Lit Only by Fire and 2017's Post Self.

Licensed by Columbia Records to break the band to a larger alternative audience, the album sold approximately 180,000 copies, yielding a commercial result below expectations. New Zealand drone metal band Black Boned Angel named themselves after the album's third track. AllMusic critic Ned Raggett wrote that some tunes on the record are "both unpleasant enough to keep the wimps away and accessible enough to win over the more open minded." Raggett further added: "It's a slightly uneasy balance but one that the band still makes work, with enough worthy tunes on Selfless to make it of interest."