Didn't even know that this killer new project from Justin Broadrick (Godflesh/Jesu/Final/Techno Animal, natch) and Bill Laswell (Painkiller/Praxis) even existed until right before the disc came out! You�d think that there would be more hype about this considering the lineup. And man, is this a monster of a debut. The first collaboration between Laswell and Broadrick since Painkiller's Buried Secrets, The Blood Of Heroes is a concept project based on a somewhat obscure post-apocalyptic action flick from 1989 called The Blood Of Heroes that starred Rutger Hauer. I myself haven�t seen this movie in years, but I remember liking it allot when it originally came out; the film detailed a scorched future earth where nomadic "Juggers" travel from town to town engaging in a brutal blood sport that bears some resemblance to rugby, only it�s played with bone-crunching full impact violence and dog skulls. Using themes and details from the film, Laswell and Broadrick create a narrative that explores this brutal future society through a mixture of massive speaker-wrecking dubstep, industrial metal riffage from Broadrick, drum n' bass/breakcore and ambient electronica...basically a badass conglom of Godflesh grind and malevolent dubstep/raggacore, with contributions from breakcore producers End.user and Submerged and Dr. Israel from Method Of Defiance handling the mic. For anyone who thought that there was more room for pure heaviness in dubstep and raggacore after The Bug�s London Zoo, this album is probably going to blow your doors off�

The opener "Blinded" alone is worth picking this up, a crushing apocalyptic dubstep assault with vicious toasting from Israel over punishing industrial flecked drum n bass breaks and slow grinding dubstep grooves, delivering some ultra-crushing dance floor devastation. The gorgeous industrial dub of "Chains" has Broadrick draping lush Jesu-like blissed out guitar and dreamy electronica over MASSIVE booming breakbeats, and on "Salute To The Jugger, the band welds grinding metallic guitar and swirling ominous samples to crushing dancehall dirge with more of Dr Israel's booming toasting and sinister hip hop flow.

The album continues through more Godflesh-meets-Enduser industrial-metal junglist fury laced with ululating female cries ("Breakaway"), gorgeous driftscapes of Jesu-style crushing melodic guitar over slower drum n' bass grooves swathed in spacey effects and sampled ambient noise ("Transcendent"), heavy but so catchy and mesmeric, and intricately assembled, atmospheric dubbed-out electronica and cinematic soundscapes with spoken word from Israel that further fleshes out the world of Blood Of Heroes. Even though the music on this album is very much rooted in dubstep and drum n' bass, Broadrick's trademark heaviness is all over the place. "Remain", for instance, starts off just like a Jesu song, massive crushing dreamsludge poppiness joined by lush electronics and breakbeats, but over time it morphs into more skittery, stuttering drum n� bass without losing the gorgeous melodic riff/hook at it's center. "Wounds Against Wounds" combines more massive blown-out Godflesh-style low end crush with manic jungle rhythms and a suffocating atmosphere of dystopian dread. "Descend Destroy" starts as a druggy dubscape of delayed toasting drifting through the ether, looped guitar, dark droning ambience, then turns into a sort of menacing industrial hip-hop jam, Dr Israel flowing over more grinding industrial sludge and pounding breakbeats, sounding a lot like Techno Animal streaked with dubstep bass buzz and spacey effects, later on morphing into apocalyptic drum n bass. That's followed by the eerie ethno-ambience, Middle Eastern strings, and ululating vocalizations of ""Bound" that lead into a scorched dubbed-out drum n bass assault, and the album closes with a wave of tribal drums and dubbed out jungle skitter, delirium of effects laden toasting, swirling angelic voices and murky dark ambience. Some of the heaviest stuff that Broadrick has done in years, it sounds like a natural progression from the heavy dub/breakbeat experiments that Godflesh engaged in during the mid 90�s, now fused with modern beat technology and much more complex programming. This disc fucking rules, and I hope to hell that this isn�t just a one off project�

Comes in digipack packaging.