The latest offering from Malignant Records is one of the heavier releases (if not the heaviest) that the label has put out, and it's a definite diversion from the more isolationist/dark ambient albums that I've been picking up from them...alot of the recent albums on Malignant have generally focused on heavily textured dark ambience that usually have some elements of percussive heaviness going on occasionally, but this Portugese band have delivered a crushing disc that veers awfully close to Godflesh-levels of heaviness at times. Sektor 304 have dropped a monster slab of apocalyptic industrial crush with Soul Cleansing, delivering a sound that combines super-heavy mechanical rhythms and junk-metal percussion with a frequent overload of dub effects, monstrous vocal incantations, surreal samples, and blasts of oppressive electronic noise; the band cites bands like Swans, Test Dept and Einsturzende Neubauten as influences on what they do, but they take those classic industrial sounds and wrap them around a framework of crushing tribal drums, Godflesh-style beats and grinding distorted basslines.

The album is introduced with a few minutes of delicate sonar-like emissions and swells of metallic ambience, but pretty quickly it kicks into the vicious factory groove of "Body Hammer", a pummeling hammer-on-anvil dirge that sounds like early Swans or Godflesh with the guitars eviscerated and replaced by the rhythmic whine of a high-powered drill, howling wind-tunnel effects, and gnarled, sputtering electronics, while the vocalist bellows over top in short, succinct bursts of rage. Slow and pounding, trance-inducing, it's heavily steeped in a classic industrial sound but WAY more menacing and heavy except for the part towards the end when the band seems to unravel into a chaotic, almost free-jazz burst of noise and percussion. The super-heavy percussion and slow-mo industrial rhythms return on the second track "Gravity Factor", but here they are infused with abrasive waves of flanger effects and high pitched drones, a pummeling industrial dub blast that slips into a rigid martial rhythm halfway through, a la a much heavier Test Dept.

The heaviest track on the disc might be "Voodoo Machine", which sounds the most like classic Godflesh; the singer bellows out harsh, spiteful mantras over simple distorted bass riffs and pounding tribal drums, as bits of electronic noise and crushing distorted synths are piled on, creating a seriously evil, malevolent atmosphere, like we're hearing Godflesh score a soundtrack for warring street gangs on the streets of Johannesburg. Then "The Beast" drags out a super-heavy dose of industrialized dub, with booming bass drums and piston-like blasts of percussive power bathed in delay and echo, like something from Godflesh's Love And Hate in Dub minus the guitars and riffs, the dystopian dub-dirge defleshed and stripped down to a spare, shambling groove, surrounded by the sound of distant swells of distortion, high flute-like notes, all kinds of effects and percussive splatter drenched in delay, processed vocals and samples, drifting along in a black cloud of shambling, skittering tribal deathdub. "Power Exchange" cranks up the distortion to the max and unleashes huge gouts of crumbling, ultra-blown-out noise over crushing metallic bass riffs and pounding Swans-style drumming, and "Death Mantra" serves up wicked spacey effects and psychedelic electronics across a punishing pneumatic pulse.

Toward the end of the album, things get a little more ambient and laid back, with the heavier elements of Sektor 304's sound alternating with the more droning sounds of "Pulse Generator", which descends into a sweltering urban hell painted with thick droning synths, swaths of ominous pitch-black ambience, distant percussive throb, scraping metal and clattering debris, like a John Carpenter soundtrack tained by the clang and buzz of Einsturzende Neubauten, streaked with short passages of spoken word recordings that have been treated with various effects, and keening high-pitched sinewaves...or the epic twelve minute "Final Transmission" that builds into a towering wall of distorted drone, orchestral noise, tribal drums, and massive waves of brain-melting cosmic effects that evolves into a stunning outro with arpeggiated melodies and phased synths that turns the last few minutes of the album into a soaring, Tangerine Dream-esque rush of kosmiche sound.

Nicely packaged in a six-panel digipack, with artwork by Sektor 304's Andre Coelho.