Originally released as a four-song EP, subsequent issuings expanded Slavestate to nine tracks, running nearly an hour long all together.  The music shows Godflesh introducing some dance and techno stylings to their industrial metal base, while the crunchy guitar and hammering percussion remain firm.  The EP is at its best when the songs are given over to the rhythms, letting the back-and-forth pounding ride along on the loop phasing and intersection shifting, which helps the songs shed some of their manufactured weight and feel more natural. 

Through the grinding metallics and bass string rattling, there’s an odd grooviness that, though often obscured, imbues the proceedings with a skewed sort of hipness, though it’s one couched in unabashed aggression.  Things do drag a bit, with three remixes filling out the space after the original tracks, but it provides a fuller illustration of the band’s experimentation and ideas at the time, and some of the reworked material hits firmer than the original cuts.