Messiah was recorded at the same time as Godflesh's 1994 studio album, Selfless,[3] but only saw limited release until being reassembled and repackaged in 2003 after the band's dissolution.

While going through the mixing process again in 1995 for the eventual 2000 fan club limited run, the development of the next studio album, Songs of Love and Hate (1996), took precedent, and Messiah was again forgotten.

After Godflesh disbanded in 2002, Broadrick was asked by Relapse Records founder Matthew Jacobson, an apparent fan, to fully release the EP, which had become a sort of legendary collector's item.

"[4] Broadrick's vocals are unusually melodic on some tracks, and heavy metal guitar is largely absent from the EP, with the focus instead placed on Green's distorted bass.

"[2] The original fan club version of Messiah was released on 5 December 2000 through Broadrick's own label, Avalanche Recordings, and was limited to 1,000 copies with different artwork than the final EP.

wrote, "ultimately, Messiah offers an unadulterated peek into Broadrick's mind before those albums were even ideas," speaking of Love and Hate in Dub and Us and Them.