Posts Tagged ‘Industrial’

Noir Addiction – Money For The Honey

Posted: 20 June 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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19th June 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

If you couldn’t guess by the name, one look at these guys and you know that there’s some industrial action in the mix. This Italian trio describe themselves as ‘dark alt. rock’ and as blending ‘alternative rock, darkwave and industrial influences with a strong focus on songcraft and melody’. And as the tiles of previous releases, which include ‘Decadent Desire’ and ‘Lust of the Flesh’, they have something of a penchant for the seamy and the lascivious.

A year on from their debut single, ‘Chemical Bride’, they serve up single number six.

Front man Sonny Lanegan explains that “‘Money for the Honey’ is about the things we chase when we know they probably won’t give us what we’re looking for. There’s desire in it, there’s attraction, but there’s also that feeling of searching for something more. The song plays with those contradictions and leaves room for people to find their own meaning in it… The phrase ‘Love me for the money, taste me for the honey’ became a kind of centerpiece for the song. It’s playful on the surface, but it also hints at the different reasons people connect with each other and the expectations we bring into relationships.”

There’s a strange interconnection in western culture with sex and money, and the notion that an abundance of the former has an allure and appeal that begets an abundance of the latter seemingly isn’t entirely without foundation. It’s a fucked-up world, but that’s capitalism for ya. Then there’s the sex and death equation… And Noir Addiction bask and revel in all of this, and never more so with the sleaze-grind industrial-tinged glam-groove of ‘Money For The Honey’. In some respects, it calls to mind latter day PIG, in its combining of pulsating synths, thumping beats and an unashamedly big chorus – all of which is a strong positive – and delivered with the swagger of Depeche Mode at their most overtly stadium.

The dark is very much the undercurrent rather than the main focus, instead pushing up the hookline ‘All I wanna do is make you think that I could kill it’. Well, they’re certainly killing it here.

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Photo by Valerio Fanelli

Watch: ‘Treachery’ by Tatv Gral

Posted: 16 June 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Chicago-based dark synth / industrial artist Tatv Gral (ˈtätü ˈgräl) announces the release of the Treachery EP, a new remix EP featuring the original version of the ‘Treachery’ single, produced by William Faith at 13 Studio, alongside exclusive remixes by DSTR (Daniel Myer of Haujobb), Tweaker (Chris Vrenna of NIN), and fellow Chicago underground denizens, [melter]. The EP is released on 6 July 2026, with presales available on Bandcamp now. The EP release is also flanked by the new video for the DSTR remix of the track, following on the heels of the video for the original single version in June.

Thematically, ‘Treachery’ emerged from a chance encounter that led Tatv Gral’s Allen Addington deeper into the symbolic world of Hellenistic astrology, as Addington explains: “It was a discovery in the ancient texts that unlocked the whole song – both Saturn and Mars independently carry the signification of ‘Treachery’, translated directly from the Ancient Greek. Two malefic forces, each already marked by betrayal, meeting in the same charged space. Following Richard Tarnas and James Hillman, I wanted to explore that archetypal collision phenomenologically – the Old Man and the Young Man, bondage and erotic force – seen through a gay male gaze and the cinematic shadow world of William Friedkin’s Cruising.”

Drawing on the archetypal psychology of James Hillman, who argued that images arising from the psyche carry their own intelligence and must not be immediately moralized, Tatv Gral uses music as a container for difficult energies rather than a platform to promote them. This approach places ‘Treachery’ in a lineage that runs through Coil’s ritual electronics, Kenneth Anger’s astrologically-timed film workings, and the Jungian shadow work that informs all of them. The queer lens is not incidental: it is the specific viewpoint through which these archetypal forces become visible.

Musically, Tatv Gral draws on the colder edges of industrial, EBM and dark electronic music, combining mechanical rhythms, claustrophobic textures and cinematic tension with an emotionally exposed vocal approach. Coil’s occult philosophy as genuine practice is at the centre of Tatv Gral’s frame of reference, while other influences range from Chicago’s industrial lineage via WAX TRAX! Records, through to the brutalist intersection of early British and German electronic music, shaped by the severity of Kraftwerk and DAF, while also maintaining a distinctly personal and contemporary perspective.

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Lumirex – Hurts

Posted: 14 June 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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28th May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

It may only be three minutes and twenty seconds long, but this latest offering from Lumirex – an Italian musician based in Munich – has a lot happening. It’s dark and stark, with low, stealthy industrial bass tones strolling and bubbling. So far, so much standard dark electronica, the kind of stuff that’s been circulating since the late 80s when Wax Trax! created the template for all things of an electronic industrial persuasion. But with ‘Hurts’, Lumirex take that template and expand on it in the most unexpected of ways.

It begins with stealth, before building… and then something happens. That something is a magnificent vocal which soars and glides – not quite operatic, but every inch classical and the perfect contrast. Compressed and breathy, it suddenly soars skywards in a departure from this domain, while the beats flurry faster, evermore glitchy, evermore tense.

There’s a break where things clamour down to a hushed moment of breathing – a tense gasping, where the word ‘kill’ is repeated, and it feels dangerous, before, out of nowhere, a banshee scream erupts and the beats flitter in again and you find yourself in a total spin.

Sure, it incorporates myriad things you’ve heard before, so much so that it’s not only familiar, but borders on the cliché – but these are just the elements. The way Lumirex draws them together is something else, and ‘Hurts’ is nothing short of mind-blowing. It has to be heard to be believed.

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Black Leather Birds – of Children and Their Sorceries

Posted: 13 June 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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22nd May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Black Leather Birds – the musical vehicle of A.G. Syjuco, based in Chicago, IL., like so many projects, began during the pandemic. Unlike so many projects, Syjuco has not only kept things going, but remained incredibly prolific.

He describes this new five-tracker, of Children and Their Sorceries, as ‘a deliberate piece of work — heavy on atmosphere and slow-building tension. Themes of anxiety and existential dread run throughout, handled with a literary sensibility that places spoken word, prose poetry, and ritual chant alongside more conventional song structures’.

Straight from the off, it’s heavy and intense. A thick, grinding bass greets us – that is to say, it churns our guts out – and a back-and-forth spoken word dialogue paints a bleak scene. The mellow breakdowns between verses include vinyl crackles and a low ache of nostalgia, before that heavy grind returns twice as heavy, twice as dense, and twice as ugly. In combining elements of Beat-influenced spoken word, trip-hop, and industrial, ‘Nothing Ever Grows Here’ makes for a dizzying and hard-hitting first four minutes.

At just over a minute, ‘Monster’ is but an interlude, but it’s a dark one, which culminates with crashing, crushing beats reminiscent of Dälek, and it segues into the narrative-centred ‘The Box’, a piece where noise rock meets spoken word. It’s actually been a while since I heard anything so narrative-orientated. More than anything, I’m reminded of Enablers – the words are first and foremost, and the atmosphere is tense, and there is noise, and there’s a certain sense of a duel for dominance between the words and the accompaniment. There are elements of jazz and noise rock and post-punk bubbling and jostling away behind Syjuco’s nonchalant narrative, which at times spins some pretty grim imagery – grimagery, even, if you’re so inclined (and I am). I’m also reminded of the smart-witted spoken word of King Missile, only with less of the sassy wordplay.

This is some pretty dark, bleak shit. ‘Almost’ is the most conventionally song-structured piece of the set, and ventures into industrial territory, with mechanical whirrs and dark electronic sounds, not to mention thudding mechanised beats, before the slow, melancholic ‘Goodnight My Darling’ lowers the curtain on this visionary work with a sadness that’s difficult to define. But sad it is.

of Children and Their Sorceries is inspired and inspiring: it’s wide-ranging, and straddles numerous genres. I have no idea where to locate it – but it’s good. And that’s what you need to know.

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Choke Chain – Decomposition EP

Posted: 3 June 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Negative Gain Productions – 10th July 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Nothing says angst-filled industrial rage with a dash of harsh Sadism than calling your band Choke Chain. But while the pitch is that their latest release is ‘the aural equivalent of existential dread’, there’s nothing about this which says ‘edgelord’. It feels like we’re in a new era here, where extreme acts are ditching the extreme shit, the shock shit, the right-wing shit, and are instead engaging with environmental issues, emotional issues.

As they pitch it, ‘The human race continuously proves itself to be largely incapable of any kindness or empathy, instead being completely obsessed with killing and destroying. That’s the central focus of Decomposition.’ It really does feel this way: the US and Israeli governments in particular seem hell-bent on annihilation right now. A part of me misses the Cold War: while we huddled under the perpetual fear of nuclear annihilation, there was equally a certain comfort in the protracted stalemate. The last few months, I’ve woken each morning, soaked in sweat and a state of anxiety and the first thing I’ve done is check my phone to make sure I’m still alive, and then check the news to see that the world is still there. This may sound extreme, but this is the nature of things, and I know I’m not alone in this feeling of perpetual panic.

Says Choke Chain founder, Mark Trueman: “The EP was mostly written during a time where I was very close to giving up. Everything felt completely hopeless, and still does to some degree. I really tried to put all of that feeling into these songs. I also tried to confront some of my personal trauma on this record, which is something I’ve pretty explicitly tried not to do through my music in the past”.

The EP is a positive proof of why we should be glad he didn’t give up, but it’s not hard to understand why things reached that point. Everything’s fucked. And we’re doomed. Whether it’s AI takeover or global climate change or WW3 (if we’re not there yet, we’re on the brink or in denial).

‘Misunderstood’ is a quintessential snarly industrial / metal plus samples intro, but Trueman’s rabid vocal gives hints of Dominic Fernow. The title track is relentlessly brutal: electronic industrial at its darkest, harshest, most metal. It’s very much in the vein of late 80s Wax Trax! with surging grooved and pounding electronic percussion, and the vocals mangled to fuck.

‘Morgue’ is classic sample-soaked dark electronica. It feels brittle, it broods, and there’s something unsettling about the layers of vocals which build layers of discomfort. ‘Life Ends’ is nothing short of rabid, an anguished roar of pain against a relentless electronic pulsation.

There’s no escaping it: with Decomposition, Choke Chain have delivered an EP that’s harsh, and heavy. It’s nasty, it’s uncomfortable. It’s like a punch to the gut, and leaves you feeling short on breath.

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Watch: ‘Yo No Quiero Ir Al Cielo’ by Heavenly Trip To Hell

Posted: 23 May 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Industrial rock band, HEAVENLY TRIP TO HELL has just unleashed their newest single & video for the song, ‘Yo No Quiero Ir Al Cielo,’ recorded by Addasi Addasi at Fuel Music Studios.

Lead Vocalist G Christ explains the heart behind the track: “The song was inspired by the fact that we do not want to go to heaven where certain people can’t get in, I want to go to a heaven where everyone gets in.” This release continues HEAVENLY TRIP TO HELL’s signature sounds – industrial metal fused with goth and heavy metal – born from the dirty streets of Long Beach, California.

Check it here:

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HEAVENLY TRIP TO HELL aka HTTH is made up of 6 members – G Christ on lead vocals, Sergio on Bass, Vicky Vicious on synth and keyboards, Jose on drums, Kurt on lead guitars, and Frank on rhythm guitar. Over the years the band has built a strong underground presence, including a growing footprint in Hollywood, consistently selling out iconic venues such as The Viper Room, Whisky a Go Go, and The Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset Boulevard.

Now celebrating nearly 30 years on the streets. HTTH has shared the stage with some of the with some of the biggest names in rock n’ roll, including Dead Kennedys, Guns N’ Roses, Billy Idol, and more – cementing their place in the lineage of legendary live performers. From there, the band reflects on a legacy built deep in the underground scene. As guitarist Kurt puts it: “Give ‘em hell!” HTTH continues forward as a relentless force in heavy music, with a story still unfolding.

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Trowser Carrier + Fern – Helping Old Ladies Cross The Road

Posted: 1 May 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Dret Skivor – 1st May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Trowser Carrier – formerly of Leeds and now of Värmland, Sweden – is a genre unto himself, being, to my knowledge the sole exponent of polite harsh noise on the planet. And if that seems like an oxymoron, that’s entirely the point: 2013’s A Flower for My Hoonoo (reissued in expanded form in 2023) offered up musings on cups of tea and tablecloths and all manner of English manners against backdrops of raw, skull-shattering abrasive noise.

For this release (I won’t suggest, as music journos so often do, that it’s long-awaited, as I doubt more than five people have noticed the time between Trowser Carrier releases), TC has paired up with fellow Värmland resident Fern (whose error was released by Dret Skivor a couple of years ago).

The compositions are considerably longer than on the previous releases by either artist, with Helping Old Ladies Cross The Road containing four new compositions, each four to nine minutes in length, plus a thirteen-minute remix courtesy of horse funeral.

It’s the title track which lifts the curtain on this characteristically quirky set, and it seems that Fern’s input has tempered the harsh noise of Trowser Carrier, replacing blanket distortion and abrasion with muffled, exploratory, experimental electronica, which swims casually between space-age weirdness, semi-ambient Krautrock, and sci-fi drones reminiscent of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. TC’s vocals are low in the mix and masked and mangled by distortion and a host of other effects, barely discernible and wholly indecipherable amidst layers of reverb and tremolo. It all sound quite polite and considerate in the delivery, though.

‘Lovely show pillows’ is a work of dank, dark ambience which is unnerving, unsettling. The lyrics are completely beyond unravelling, the voice serving more as another instrument in the slow swirl of sound, but the title speaks for itself, as is also the case on ‘Nearly clean? No really clean!’ a slow drift of cloudlike ambience with submerged vocals which likely references a TV advert from the 80s or perhaps early 90s, the specifics of which elude me. It sounds like a disjointed message beaming in via satellite from a space mission circa 1970, crackling through space and time against a backdrop of whale song. Maybe I need to clean my ears: perhaps they’re only nearly clean. But then a barrage of noise like a thunder storm breaking hits with the arrival of ‘The smell of a lawn at dawn’. This is, of course, peak absurdism, and precisely what one would expect from the label, and in particular Trowser Carrier, whose objective is essentially to take the piss out of harsh noise and power electronics and industrial ambient and all the rest, while exploiting the form with a commendable aptitude.

Horse funeral’s remix of ‘TC + Fern’ appears to meld down the album in its entirety to a single seething morass of undifferentiated slow-moving sonic gloop. Here, any vocals are boiled down and simmered to mere bubbles in a broiling broth, and the track eventually evaporates to nothing.

What to make of this? Well, it’s not designed to meet conventional musical standards. Quite the opposite, in fact. But Helping Old Ladies Cross The Road sees Trowser Carrier + Fern belongs to a territory all of its own, dismantling the tropes and forms of the genres to which the album belongs. It would be commercial suicide if commercial potential was an issue. As it is, it’s simply a magnificent example of obstinate perversity – and good noise.

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The Family Men – Co/de/termination

Posted: 29 April 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Welfare Sounds & Records – 8th May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

The Family Men sound like a bunch of nice, respectable, friendly fellows who espouse upstanding, moral values… in name, that is. Musically, they describe what they do as ‘Total Harmful Sound’, and following the release of their debut No Sound Forever in 2024, their bio records that ‘the band have toured extensively across Sweden and beyond, steadily building a reputation as one of the most intense and uncompromising live acts on the circuit. That relentless momentum feeds directly into Co/de/termination, a natural yet sharper continuation of their sonic evolution.’

They go on to add, ‘Pushing both intensity and precision to new extremes, the album refines the band’s sound into something tighter, heavier, and more deliberate than before. Urgent yet controlled, abrasive yet purposeful, Co/de/termination stands as a focused and uncompromising statement’. It’s certainly a bit more accessible, a bit cleaner, than its predecessor, but then, most records are.

‘Calamity’ arrives in a swirl of noise, the repetitive motifs of grunge – but also in some respects reminiscent of Pitchshifter after the change from being Pitch Shifter – with metallic guitars set to stun, and percussion pumping hard – while the raw, ragged vocals are more rooted in hardcore. And it all blasts in amidst a noise-rock tumult that bucks and blisters, acid house bleeps suddenly submerged in a tidal wave of guitar and driving bass. ‘Scanner’ and ‘Luxury’, too, belong in part to the Nu-metal revival, while clearly retaining roots in industrial and noise rock, and it makes for a pretty potent (and angry-sounding) cocktail.

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In places – ‘AOR’, and ‘Solving the Light Issue’ for example – they invite comparisons to early Revolting Cocks, colliding electro and industrial strength guitar atop some infectious – and really quite danceable – bass grooves and shouty vocals. The latter of these, in particular, boasts a particularly phat, distorted bass sound and pounding beat, and for all of the gnarliness and aggression of the sound – and Co/de/termination is an album that’s fully in-yer-face – it’s apparent that The Family Men know how to render a certain swing and introduce a level of catchiness.

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That said, elsewhere, they just go all out on the attack: ‘Heaven’ hits as a brawling scuzzfest, laden with feedback reminiscent of the most ferocious cuts on Daughters’ You Won’t Get What You Want (an album sadly sullied by subsequent revelations regarding their front man). Elsewhere still, the hypnotic, spacious ‘New Clear’ ventures towards shoegaze territory. Rather than seeming incongruous, it’s welcome, proving that it’s possible to create an album that’s focused while still having range.

It’s high-energy, high-octane stuff, and it’s certainly not tame or timid.

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Listen: ‘Hegemony’ by Flesh Field feat. Assemblage 23

Posted: 26 April 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Prior to the release of FLESH FIELD’s stunning new album’s physical edition, the US-industrial act drops the bonus track ‘Hegemony’ featuring ASSEMBLAGE 23 frontman Tom Shear.
’Hegemony’ is available as part of the album premium download and on the bonus CD of the lavish ltd. 2CD artbook deluxe edition, which will hit stores on May 22, 2026.

FLESH FIELD comment: “I wanted to have some cool remixes but also exclusive tracks for the deluxe edition of On Enmity”, mastermind Ian Ross explains. “As I had already received the fun remixes by Mildreda, Omen Code, Lost Signal, Schneider, and 16 Volt, I contacted my old friend Tom Shear from Assemblage 23 about adding his voice to a track that had not made it onto the album as I was kind of lost for fitting words. Tom did not ‘only’ come up with excellent lyrics but he also contributed his awesome voice to our track – which makes it a really special bonus for the collectors’ edition.”

The album On Enmity was digitally released on February 20, 2026. Hear ‘Hegemony’ here:

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.SYS Machine – Parts Unknown

Posted: 16 April 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Glitchmode Recordings – 10th April 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

.SYS Machine’s third album is the first to be released through the Glitchmode Recordings imprint, home to Dave McAnally’s main project, Derision Cult, among notable names. And on Parts Unknown, .SYS Machine continue to expand their sonic palette, while still maintaining close connections with influences like Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails, but also Peter Gabriel and Porcupine Tree.

One thing which is key to .SYS Machine’s work is its proximity to the present: McAnally draws on his environment and events in real-time, and while previous album Graceful Isolation was the ‘lockdown’ album, Parts Unknown is, as they put it, a work which ‘reflects on navigating an age of uncertainty—both spiritually and technologically—touching on themes of recovery, loss, and the uneasy process of entering new phases of life.’ And once again, ‘the album also features guest vocal contributions from Kimberly Kornmeier of Bow Ever Down on two tracks, adding a dynamic that recalls the atmospheric interplay heard in artists like Garbage and Portishead’.

These are unquestionably daunting times: the world is at war – not all fighting the same war, but the point stands – and while many are joyfully embracing AI as an assistant, a creator of amusing artwork, a companion, or a therapist, just as many are fearful for their livelihoods. The future has never looked so uncertain, our places in the world as individuals so precarious.

‘Everyday just feels like the gravity’s gone’, is the refrain on the album’s first song, ‘Gravity’ – and it’s not about being serious. There is a sense of being cut loose from the planet, spinning free from all that is known.

Single release ‘Fading’, one of the Kimberly Kornmeier vocal leads, is altogether slower and more overtly reflective in tone – almost a trip-hop ballad, whereby the standard electronic backing, with its twitchy beats, is augmented with guitar. ‘Are you lost in yourself / I think you’re fading away’, she sings, sounding lost in herself, too. And perhaps the message really is that we’re all lost, but many don’t even realise – or have the time or headspace to reflect long enough to realise. It’s perhaps fitting that at a time when the world seems to be spinning at a faster pace, and waking each morning brings with it a combination relief at still being alive and the anxiety over what may have happened overnight and what the coming day may hold, that Parts Unknown manifests as a slower, sparser-sounding work, which steps back and creates space and time for contemplation. ‘Home’, the second Kornmeier cut is, in contrast, quite possibly the album’s poppiest, and more than justifies the Garbage references.

‘Resonance’ touches on the contradictions of life in the present: ‘I can see the future it’s not certain everything’s just fine / Maybe if we wait just longer everything will be alright’. We tell ourselves, perhaps even convince ourselves everything’s fine, but ultimately, it’s just a hope, wishful thinking that it will be. Because without hope, what have we actually got?

The expansive ‘Collapse’ is, contrary to its title, the expansive sound of hope as sweeping, cinematic synths soar over a delicate acoustic guitar, while the final track, ‘Closure’, leaves us in a more ponderous place, mining a strong seam of Depeche Mode / NIN electro-led instrumentation which blossoms into a powerful, uplifting finale. But is it the sound of true hope, or simply a desire to convince that hope still exists? And where does the line lie between hope and delusion? These are questions to mull while absorbing the details of Parts Unknown. Unknown and unknowable, none of us knows what’s around the corner. With Parts Unknown, .SYS Machine prompt contemplation with some well crafted soundscapes and neatly-tempered beats.

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