Posts Tagged ‘Industrial’

Watch: ‘An American Ideal Of Beauty’ by PIG

Posted: 2 August 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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UK industrial glam maverick Raymond Watts aka PIG has released a brand new single, ‘An American Ideal Of Beauty’, on Metropolis Records. Co-written with old friend Marc Heal (Cubanate, C-Tec), who provides a co-vocal and synth work, the song also features Günter Schulz (ex-KMFDM) sharing guitar duties with Watts’ regular songwriting partner Jim Davies (ex-The Prodigy and Pitchshifter).

“I wanted to distil and hone the sound of the current PIG album, ‘Hurt People Hurt’, so inviting my old partners in swine Marc and Günter to join Jim and myself in the studio seemed the perfect blend of brutality and beauty to feed, fertilise and transmogrify the hog into Hogzilla,” Watts explains. "This new single was the first result of our work as a quartet, hammered in the heat of the anvil of hurt.”

A stunning video for ‘An American Ideal Of Beauty’ directed by E Gabriel Edvy for Blackswitch Labs can be seen here:

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The recording sessions produced three more new songs, each of which has been remixed by contemporaries that include Stabbing Westward’s Chris Hall and  Combichrist. All eight tracks are collected on Dirt Box, an EP that will be issued on 4th September, a week after the commencement of PIG’s ‘Hurt People Tour’ of North America. The 44 dates are to promote Hurt People Hurt, which received stellar reviews upon release in late May, and include performances in Chicago, Los Angeles and Austin as part of the Cold Waves XIV festival.

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Amps Kill – Avulse EP

Posted: 25 July 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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23rd July 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

With Amps Kill’s Avulse EP, we’re in dark ambient territory here, with the emphasis on the dark, at least sonically. In terms of intent and narrative arc, it’s a little more nuanced in hue.

As the accompanying notes outline, ‘Without lyrics, Avulse guides the listener through a story. The track titles on the EP provide some context to the emotional inspiration behind the music… Avulse explores the idea of removing aspects of the self or of one’s life that are holding one back from growing and moving forward just as lizards, spiders, and insects need to shed their skin to grow. It’s a process that is often quite painful but always for the better. That pain is the core of Avulse’.

The EP’s title certainly makes sense in this context, the dictionary definition being ‘to pull or tear something away, especially a part of the body as a result of an accident or surgery’. And so it is that Amps Kill delivers something of a performative purging over the course of the EP’s five compositions.

As is the method when it comes to EP releases in recent years, the four of the five tracks on Avulse have been released individually as singles. I’m still not entirely clear on the wisdom of this approach to promotion: there’s building interest through advance singles, and then there’s emptying the tank. But then I spent a long time being accustomed to one or two singles in advance of an album’s release, and one or two more after to maintain its profile and to extend its trailing sales. Now, everything is up-front – a consequence surely being that anticipation for an EP is diminished because there’s less – if any – new material to look forward to. But I’m 50 and came to music in an era of physical releases and singles chart shows on the TV and radio, and I’m clearly get to grasp the benefits of the new way.

The first four tracks, all released as singles do, it has to be said, work better in succession than as standalone pieces. ‘Slough’, landing with a dense, hard, serrated-edged billow of noise that crashes in like a tidal wave, is heavy and oppressive. There are softer sounds beneath, but overall, it forges a thick, oppressive atmosphere, and ‘Chronophage’ plunges deeper. The title references the Corpus Clock, also known as the Grasshopper Clock, outside the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, a clock with no hands or numerals and guarded by a metal grasshopper or locust. Amidst scrapes and hums of feedback, electronic insectoid skitterings create texture on the track, creating a scratchy, uncomfortable tension, and ‘Husk’ brings more heavy, sonorous drones and cracking distortion at the edges of dense surges of sound. It’s not entirely ambient, as there are thick, booming beats which land like detonations, and the atmosphere is tense, akin to the sound of low-flying planes and crashes and splashes like shattering metal rupture all about. It’s pretty intense, and comfortable it is not.

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‘Basilisk’ brings more of the same, in essence, but the thunderous beats are brought to the fore, amidst the flutter of flapping, like the sound of a thousand bats fleeing a bottomless cave. And so there is a clear sense of progression here: dark ambience transitions to throbbing industrial – in the more traditional sense, tracing a lineage to Throbbing Gristle, Coil.

Arriving at the last piece, the only one previously unreleased, there is a significant shift in tone. As Amps Kill intimates, “‘Des Pas Sur Les Cendres’ completes the idea of the group and ties all of them together. That track takes all of its musical thematic material from a piano work by Claude Debussy called ‘Des pas sur la neige’ and expands or explores it’. It sure as hell doesn’t sound like Debussy, but it very much does feel like a composition which brings the EP to a fitting close – altogether more subdued, softer, more delicate, it’s five and a half minutes of mellow ambience, albeit with a few serrated edges – which, while dark, hints at some vague sense of hope, and the sense that once the avulsion is complete, there is the potential to grow anew.

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Watch: ‘In Unity’ WIELORYB vs PSYCHOTRIBE Tribute Remix by DEATĦ B¥ LØVE

Posted: 22 July 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Trans-Atlantic dark-electronic duo DEATĦ B¥ LØVE presents their new single ‘n Unity (WIELORYB Remix and Tribute)’ which is dedicated to Wieloryb a.k.a. Paweł Kmiecik, a groundbreaking music and video artist, known forhis aggressive brand of industrial music and post-apocalyptic videos and who also, tragically, passed away just a month ago.

This two-track offering consists of "In Unity (WIELORYB Power Noise Remix)" and "In Unity (WIELORYB vs. PSYCHOTRIBE Tribute Remix)", for which the accompanying video was created by Wieloryb. This single arrives soon after the release of DEATĦ B¥ LØVE’s debut album 444, released via Distortion Productions.

A talented artist, Wieloryb was the dark pulse of Poland’s industrial music scene, emerging in Gdańsk in 1994 during an era of concrete, rust, and cold electronics. From his first recordings, Wieloryb struck without compromise. Electro industrial, EBM, and techno merged with noise, metallic rhythms, and haunting ambient soundscapes. The debut cassette "I" earned a Fryderyk Award nomination and opened a new chapter in Polish electronic music that was brutal, uncompromising, and devoid of light.

For decades, Wieloryb’s music has existed where aggression meets trance, and destruction gives way to contemplation. It is more than sound. It is a complete mechanical ritual, where raw electronics intertwine seamlessly with Paweł’s experimental visual art and video work, creating a singular aesthetic language of industrial melancholy.

“We dedicate this release to Wieloryb, Paweł Kmiecik, an extraordinary artist, producer, and video creator, whose vision left a lasting mark on the industrial scene. ‘n Unity’was the final remix he completed before his sudden and unexpected passing,” says Pete Guellard.

“His post-apocalyptic industrial landscapes sent chills down our spines, while his relentless rhythms and crushing soundscapes raised our pulse and demanded movement. His work was raw, uncompromising, and unforgettable. Thank you for everything Paweł. Your legacy lives on through the art you left behind. All profits from this release will go directly to support Paweł fmily.”

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Elektrikill – Küntzpiracy

Posted: 20 July 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Evol Music Group – 26th June 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Over on this side of the pond, in the UK, we have plenty to beef about, and more than enough to worry about, too. But while we see endless footage of war in Ukraine, Gaza, and the whole of the Middle East as the US and Iran wrestle their way through the most futile war, we’re in a petty sheltered place, and as much as we may reel in horror over news of the latest high school massacre and laugh at Donald Trump’s daily meltdowns, we do so from a position of relative safety. However hard we continue to lumber into a state of total surveillance, however emboldened the racists become thanks to the rising right, however rapidly our government are eroding our right to protest, favouring perpetrators of genocide over those who speak in opposition to it, there’s still no danger of some masked ICE psycho pulling your car over and demanding your papers before shooting you in the head. Our politicians may nearly all be slippery, deceptive careerists who accept ‘donations’ from individuals and companies with vested interests, but we’re not led by a demented narcissist who’s openly professed to being a wannabe dictator. In short, I don’t think we fully grasp what it’s like to live in America right now.

Elektrikill’s founder, Steve Vil, says of Küntzpiracy – a title that’s both a fairly lame pun and a bit of cliché, but gets a pass because America and an approximation of a Butthole Surfers reference – “Basically it’s my most political album touching on themes of government corruption and half of this country’s loss of humanity while claiming it’s all in the name of Jesus. That pisses me off. I also call out closeted government officials in ‘The Scream’. Look, guys, just be gay instead of crashing Grindr any time you meet in large groups. I do give the listener a break from the political stuff. ‘Vampire Blond’, for example, is about a vampire drag queen.”

There’s a fair bit to unpack here, and he makes a number of valid points. It’s not the whole of America. In fact, it’s a slender majority backing the MAGA madness. Unfortunately, they’ve voted to facilitate an insane power grab, meaning that while there are a fair few who aren’t happy with the direction things have been taking lately, tough shot: you could have seen it coming, so this is on you. And this also involves the most overtly racist, homophobic administration in memory – but as with anything which involves hypermasculinity, what the world outside sees is massive repressed gayness. Yeah, we’re looking at you, Andrew Tate, with your no-bollocks swimming trunks and purple satin blouse, and the culture you espouse. What utterly fucked-up times we live in.

‘Thrum’ makes for a dark, dense start to the album, throbbing bass dominating, the distorted monotone vocals low in the mix as extraneous squalls of electronic noise burst all around, and ‘S(t)imulation’ keeps things dark with some hefty tribal percussion battering away through a murky wall of sound – although the choruses break out with a genuine hook driven by a pumping beat and punchy snare. It’s like leaping from Coil to late 80s Ministry, but it works, and the aforementioned ‘Vampire Blond’ swings into classic electrogoth / technoindustrial territory, and I could chuck a raft of touchstones in here – and that’s no bad thing. they clearly know what they’re doing, and where they’re positioning themselves, and do it well.

‘The Scream’ is again a bit Ministry circa The Land of Rape and Honey, and perhaps a bit KMFDM, and more broadly, a bit Wax Trax! Hardly innovative, but the delivery is top-notch. The beats slam hard.

Landing at the album’s midpoint the piano-led ‘A Chill in the Air’ is both expansive and claustrophobic, and slowing the tempo to explore a more brooding atmospheric, it’s well placed, ahead of full-throttle rager ‘Monoshift’ which brings the industrial aggression pumped to the max. Indeed, the second half of the album is harder, faster, and the altogether synthier ‘My Salvation’ rhymes ‘my salvation’ with ‘masturbation’ in a style reminiscent of early Revolting Cocks.

Stylistically, Electrikill don’t really break any new ground, but Küntzpiracy is intense, angry, and relentless, the aggro and the tempo picking up noticeably in the second half, with ‘Manifesto’ delivering a power finish. With Küntzpiracy, Elektrikill bring the fury and bring the force – and the political ire. This is very much an album of the now, and it hits hard.

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Listen: ‘Manifesto’ by Damage Control x OHMElectronic

Posted: 17 July 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Damage Control is an international electro-industrial group centred around a core quartet of Bill Barsby, Richard Thacker and Alex Wise (all based in Australia), plus Markus App from Germany. Barsby and Thacker are originally from the UK.

The group released an EP in mid-June entitled Master Of Silence on Metropolis Records that contained four songs recorded with Leæther Strip (the Danish musician Claus Larsen). They have followed it today with ‘Manifesto’, a new single resulting from another collaboration, this time with the Canadian duo OHMelectronic.

Consisting of Chris Peterson (Unit:187, Front Line Assembly, Delerium, Decree) and Craig Huxtable (Noise Unit, Landscape Body Machine), OHMelectronic issued two albums in the 2010s and recently resurrected the group to record new material.

The lyrics of ‘Manifesto’ have been written and sung by Huxtable. Exploring themes of sovereignty and personhood in the digital age, he states that “it is about sticking to your principles in an age of hyper disinformation. There is a lot of manipulation, false narratives and false idols out there. We are bombarded every day and we all need to stand strong in the face of it all. Declare your independency, set yourself free.”

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TATV GRAL – Treachery EP

Posted: 5 July 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Christopher Nosnibor

Active since the mid-nineties, Chicago’s TATV GRAL (tätü ’gräl) are an industrial-leaning dark synth act, the vehicle of Allen Addington, and one very much represents the seedy, sleazier, grindier aspect of the scene. As they put it, ‘Forged in shadow, shaped by archetypal psychology, the gay male gaze, and the ritual power of containment’, and the songs in their catalogue are abrim with hints of fleshly sensuousness and dark desires pitched alongside pulsating beats.

The Treachery EP offers four versions of ‘Treachery’ – the original, plus remixes by DSTR (Daniel Myer of Haujobb), Tweaker (Chris Vrenna of NIN), and fellow Chicago industrial outfit [melter]. These are some names to be reckoned with, making this a significant release for TATV GRAL, making several steps up the ladder, so to speak. And it flexes some muscles, too.

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In terms of context, there’s a fair bit to this, from Hellenistic astrology to the psychology of James Hillman, we learn that ‘the song places these symbolic forces in dialogue with Coil’s ritual electronics, Kenneth Anger’s astrologically timed film work, and the Jungian tradition that informs them.’ Thankfully, knowledge of all of this is not a requirement when it comes to appreciating the song or the EP. But add to this the fact that Addington requested the project’s collaborators to not simply remix the track, but to draw out an emotional aspect not present – or at least, not explicitly conveyed – in the original, and it’s yielded some interesting results, which take it beyond the standard remix EP – thankfully. It’s a format that tends to feel lazy, delegating creative responsibility to others and milking material for all its worth and more, and more often than not I find I’m bored shitless of hearing the same song back to back to back with bigger beats or more bass or synth and stretched out over double the duration of the original… after Nine Inch Nails released Fixed, the remix EP had reached not only its peak, but its limit, as far as I’m concerned.

There are, of course, some exceptions, and this is one of them.

In its initial iteration, ‘Treachery’ grinds along, breathy, suggestive, with a pumping groove and with hints of DAF and Man 2 Man and Depeche Mode circa Black Celebration in the mix, and as when listening to ‘Stripped’, it’s hard to decide of you need a wank or a shower most.

The DSTR Remix is the longest of the three, adding almost a whole minute to the running time, and accentuating the heavy grinding bass synth and altering the vocals by downtuning them. The effect is weird, filthy, and vaguely menacing. The [melter] mix is all about the stomping beat and feels more aggressive, sweatier, more muscle-flexing. The arrival of the Tweaker Remix is well-timed, being altogether sparser, more minimal, and more expansive, picking apart the components and introducing significant space. You might say it’s less techno and more industrial, but whatever you say, it’s a dramatic shift in interpretation, and it works well.

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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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