Posts Tagged ‘Industrial’

staraya derevnya – Garden window escape

Posted: 23 April 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

2nd May 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

British-Israeli krautfolk collective staraya derevnya are the epitome of obscure and underground, and it’s precisely for releases like Garden window escape that Aural Aggravation exists. Obscure and underground are not criticisms or judgements here: the world of music is broad and exciting because it affords room for all forms of expression. I’m not going to touch on politics or anything else that may impinge on this as an exploration of a creative work, and suffice it to say that I in no way consider any government to be representative of all of the people, especially not the artists, the creatives. staraya derevnya are the kind of artists who exist not only beyond politics, but simply beyond, and Garden window escape is one of those albums which isn’t only bold in its experimental, but

Precisely what ‘Tight-lipped thief’, the album’s first track expresses, is unclear to me. While containing traditional folk elements, the experimental edge is strong, and it twitters and tweaks, like a squeaky toy for a dog or a baby, over an array of clattering percussion, and the cumulative outcome is a wild, murky, jazzy cacophony, whereby the muttered vocals are largely submerged beneath a discordant tumult.

This isn’t only discordant, but it’s also pretty dark: while ‘What I keep in my closet’ brings a sandpapery scrape and a monotonous vocal yelp, and the effect is cumulative, like sandpaper applied to the skin slowly but steadily, becoming increasingly sore over time, before the woozy, warping, dissonant drone of the twelve-minute ‘Half-deceased uncle’ offers up new levels of discomfiture. It’s a gloopy Krauty swell and surge, combining elements of Suicide and Throbbing Gristle with the electronic pulsations of Chris and Cosey’s Trance, along with some low and heavy drone and tooting horns which evoke the spirit of Joujouka, but with a sci-fi swirl a creeping uneasiness and a tension which pulls away as the chords, the limbs, and ultimately the senses. Noises peel and lurch over a loping rhythm which plugs and plods away relentlessly for quite some minutes. There’s an acoustic guitar strumming away amidst the pings and pows and muffled vocal mutterings which melt together in this lo-fi sonic froth which occasionally calls to mind the breathy discordant tension of Xiu Xiu.

‘Cork flight operation’ grumbles and rumbles on, and on, and constructed around a sparse guitar, it’s faintly evocative of later Earth, but instead of rolling beats, there’s an insistent crunching thud like slow-marching feet and there’s rippling synths and slow drones backing the almost melody of the vocals.

AA

Amidst squealing circuitry and melting synths, ‘Onwards, through the garden window’ emerges, sparse and gloomy. The hushed vocal, thick with a syrupy distortion, is menacing, the instrumentation borders on jazz but with an industrial / dark ambient edge, which is unsettling, uncomfortable, and this is how Garden window escape slowly grows its unsettling sonic tendrils. There is nothing easy or accessible about it, but it is strangely compelling.

AA

AA

a1455615488_10

The Birthday Massacre – Pathways

Posted: 13 April 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Metropolis Records – 11th April 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

For some of us, at least, 1999 feels pretty recent still, but the depressing fact of the matter is that the 90s are as far behind us now as the 60s were in the 90s. And I write as someone who, growing up in the 80s, would watch things like The Golden Oldies Picture Show with my parents on an evening. The premise of this particular show was to play 60s hits with naff reimagined contemporary promo videos, many of which were absolutely heinous – a cartoon of a ball bouncing around as an accompaniment to Bobby Vee’s 1960 hit ‘Rubber Ball’ stands out as a particularly excruciating example. Things have – thankfully, when it comes to this – progressed, but the point here is that it’s been twenty-six years since The Birthday Massacre came into the world. At that time, it felt like the interesting in goth was diminishing and both cybergoth and technoindustrial had kinda had their day, too. But as is often the case, and to paraphrase Throbbing Gristle, I think it may have been, if you stick around long enough you’ll come into favour. No doubt someone will correct me on this, and that’s fine: the point remains valid.

That The Birthday Massacre have sustained a career for more than a quarter of a century is impressive, and testament to both their perseverance and their capacity to connect with a niche audience. It’s often the way that a cult act which never really achieves commercial success or comes into fashion will retain the kind of hardcore fanbase trendy acts will only ever be able to dream of, and while there’s much scoffing about so-called ‘one-hit-wonders’, many no-hit acts enjoy far more consistent careers.

And consistency is the word here: The Birthday Massacre have become dependable for the consistency of their output. And if Pathways sounds like a quintessential cut from The Birthday Massacre, well that sounds good to me, and likely will to fans, too. It packs a hard edge, but balances it with some magical melodies. It has poppy, commercial tendencies, but then, the same is true of 2022’s Fascination.

The album careens in on a bluster of feedback before hefty industrial guitar grinds in hard on ‘Sleep Tonight’, a track that bangs with such energy that it guarantees you most certainly won’t sleep tonight or even maybe for a week. It’s a magnificent blend of hypnotic, ethereal electropop and grating industrial metal. KMFDM and PIG immediately spring to mind, particularly in the execution of the hefty, chugging riffs and expansive, discordant mid-sections, but equally, Pathways presents glorious gothic grandeur and, by way of a more commercial reference, the emotive arena rock of Evanescence.

The title track is a contemporary goth-rock stomper, anthemic, with crystalline lead guitar meshing atop a driving bass and pumping percussion. It’s accessible and tuneful, and casting aside genre distinctions for a moment, a cracking rock / pop song delivered with some power, and with ‘Whisper’ they pack another anthem and once again demonstrate their consistency.

‘Wish’ may be a shade lighter, a bit more 80s radio rock / pop, but it’s delivered deftly, and the final song, ‘Cruel Love’, which stretches out for almost five and a half minutes is suitably anthemic, in the most 80s pop way. It’s quite a shift from the opener, but there’s a trajectory which is traceable through Pathways, as The Birthday Massacre lead the listener toward the light – and it works nicely.

AA

a0088031338_10

Kadaitcha – Urban Somnambulistics

Posted: 7 April 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

Ant-Zen – 7th April 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Kadaitcha’s Urban Somnambulistics was originally released on cassette in 2017, and was lauded for its dark atmospherics and rumbling narrative, spoken in Russian. A lot has happened since then, and the Ukrainian duo have, against all odds, remained active, releasing Tramontane in September 21023, and now a new version of Urban Somnambulistics, with the vocals in English. It’s not only the urban landscape of Ukraine which has changed since the album’s initial release, but the cultural landscape also, and the decision to re-record the lyrics in English was in some ways a reaction to the cultural and political context which has evolved, with Andrii explaining to me that, for him, Russian has become ‘a language of occupancy’.

There had been a shift following the annexation of Crimea in 2024, with some people switching from speaking Russian to Ukrainian, something which became more prevalent following Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

It’s hard to really grasp, from a position of comfort and safety, what it truly means to be an artist in a country which is not only at war, but has now been so for more than three years. The idea of making art under such circumstances seems completely wild, but at the same time, something we’ve learned from the long history of war – and indeed, history as a long thread, riven with tribulation – is that art has always been something we’ve made. It seems as if it’s almost a part of our survival mechanism, and that in difficult times, it’s a compulsion within the human psyche that there’s an absolute necessity to document, to create.

Urban Somnambulistics is dark and intense, and while it’s devoid of beats, it’s far too noisy and gnarly and bears the hallmarks of Throbbing Gristle at their darkest, most experimental best, abrasive, and anything but ‘very friendly’. The vocal on ‘hiding the angel’, while clean but reverby on the original version, is thick with distortion this time around, and significantly darker and more menacing in tone. ‘bushmeat’ is nine minutes of blown-out distortion and fizzing electronics, snapped cables and firing sparks, and it’s not only tense, but intense, not to mention unsettling. It’s a messy noise drift that would work as part of a soundtrack to Threads, a post-apocalyptic drone with the whistle of a bleak wind cutting across a desolate landscape. There is shredding noise, too, metallic devastation: you can almost picture ruined farm buildings hanging on their frames beside cropless fields.

Things really step up with ‘symbiote’, five minutes of oppressively dark industrial grind, before the rather more airy expanse of ‘paninsecta’, a piece that groans and drones, clanks and clatters, cut through with snarls and burrs, distorted vocal utterances just beneath the level of audibility adding an unsettling layer of discomfort. The eleven-minute title track provides the finale, and again, it’s very much in the vein of Throbbing Gristle’s more experimental works – menacing, uncomfortable, unpredictable, and noisy, collaged overlays enmeshing with crunching metal, melting circuitry, harsh drones rising up, a surging sonic tempest.

It’s remarkable that this is an album which was recorded before life in Ukraine changed beyond all recognition, because Urban Somnambulistics appears to convey all the tension and all the devastation of conflict in its presentation of sonic extremities, and its embracing of noise that hits like… like… It has significant impact, and that’s a fact.

AA

cover

Machine Mafia – Zoned

Posted: 4 April 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Cruel Nature Records – 4th April 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Machine Mafia may be largely unknown, but the duo’s members have some pedigree, being Adam Stone of Pound Land and Jase Kester (Omnibadger/Omnibael/Don’t Try/Plan Pony), all regulars at Aural Aggravation. Jase joined Pound Land’s ever-shifting lineup as the (then) sixth member in 2023 for a handful of live shows, and contributing additional noise to Mugged (because it needed more noise). Deciding to collaborate in early 2024, they slipped out a couple of self-released EPs, which as the notes which accompany Zoned observe, ‘more or less went under the radar at the time’ – which is why they’re getting a second go here, with Zoned being a compilation of those EPs plus four new tracks, or a new EP packaged with the previous ones, depending on your perspective. The tracks aren’t in their original order of release, and have bene resequenced, presumably for the purpose of creating a flow that’s sonic rather than chronological. And so it is that the album starts with ‘Killzones’, arguably the most overtly Pound land-like track on the album, which eases fans of Pound Land into the world of Machine Mafia nicely, or will otherwise alienate pretty much everyone else, unless they’re on the market for something that sounds like Sleaford Mods in collaboration with PiL while monged on Ketamine.

They describe themselves as ‘a voice/electronics duo in the grand tradition of Suicide, Silver Apples, Soft Cell, Pet Shop Boys etc.’ And it is indeed a grand tradition, to which one would reasonably add Sparks, Air, and Erasure, and even the final incarnation of Whitehouse, although what this list ultimately achieves is to demonstrate just how wide-ranging the electronic duo format stretches in terms of style. I very much doubt you’d find these guys donning big hats or flamboyant costumes and kicking out a set of brassy dancefloor-friendly pop bangers, at least on the evidence of the thirteen tracks on offer here. They recount that their first gig was ‘in a small craft ale bar in the Staffordshire town of Leek, receiving a ban for high decibel levels and foul language’. This sets the bar of expectation, and in this context, Zoned does not disappoint.

As I suggested in my write-up of the Killzones EP, the electronic duo they share the most common ground with is Cabaret Voltaire in their early years, mashing up samples and noise in a Burroughsian cut-up style, and churning out gnarly noise that sits between Suicide and Throbbing Gristle. This is particularly true of the collage chaos of ‘Lecture 0.3B’,

But then, ‘F.O.S’, is a blast of uptempo, lo-fi, bass driven drum-machine propelled hardcore punk strewn with feedback and snarling aggression, and ‘Where’s The Money Gone?’, from the Money Gone EP is a filthy racket with massive blasting beats which lands in the space between The Fall and Big Black, powering away at a motorik groove for the best part of six minutes while Stone hollers thickly and ever-more desperately ‘where’s the money gone?’ Well, we know it’s not gone into public services, but there some mega-rich cunts swanning around and jetting into space. And has anyone seen Michelle Mone since she sailed off on her multi-million quid yacht?

‘England’, originally released on Industrial Coast’s ‘Rock Against Racism’ compilation is very Throbbing Gristle, in the (pulsating) vein of ‘Very Friendly’.

Of the four new cuts, ‘Crabclaw’ invites comparisons to Selfish Cunt’s ‘Britain is Shit’, and this may not be entirely accidental, a stinking snarling assault on culture and the senses, with an overloading gritty bass and vitriolic vocals ranting in a mess of distortion and reverb over the murky morass of a musical backing. It’s the sound of frustration, it’s the sound of anger mashed together with despair. ‘Jackpot’, meanwhile, is like John Cooper Clarke spouting over a segment of Metal Machine Music. All the while, a drum machine and throbbing bass pulse away relentlessly: this is Sleaford Mods for real punks. ‘Human Like’ revisits the dubby tendencies first explored with ‘Killzones’, and it’s a dark, sprawling cavernous hell of reverb atop an organ-shaking bass, again bringing together PiL (think ‘Theme’) and Throbbing Gristle (think ‘What a Day’). It’s meaty, and then some, and crunches and grinds away for a full six echo-soaked minutes. Closing with the eight-and-a-half-minute megalith that is ‘Outside My House’, they go full Whitehouse, with a booming bass that’s positively weapons-grade density, over which Stone delivers a rabid, drawling rant from the perspective of a crabby right-wing old-timer while electronic extranea bubble and eddy around. It’s utterly brutal, and completely uncomfortable, and this is the brilliance of Machine Mafia. Gnarly, nasty, uncompromising, Zoned is not friendly, and it will leave you feeling drained, harrowed, punished. Mission accomplished. You’re not supposed to like this.

AA

a2183471837_10

Bellhead – Threats

Posted: 31 March 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

8th April 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s both an understatement and perhaps a needlessly obvious thing to remark that there is an overwhelming amount of new music around right now. And so it’s aggravating, not to mention disappointing, to hear people of a certain age – and I’m talking the over 35s here, but it becomes considerably more pronounced as the demographic slides up the scale – bemoaning that there’s no decent music being released anymore. No, that is not the problem. In fact, it’s simply not true, on any level. The problem is that there is so much new music that, depending on your tastes and preferences, finding the wheat among the chaff can be like finding a needle in a haystack, if we’re going to push some cliches. The cliches are relevant, because even among the ‘good’ music, stylistically, at least, a lot of what’s out there is a rehashing of other stuff, and finding anything that feels new or different is rare.

Bellhead are doing something different. Sure, there are elements of post-punk, goth, noise-rock, but there’s nothing ‘template’ or ‘by numbers’ on display here. The fact they don’t have a conventional musical lineup is a key factor, of course: two basses, a drum machine, and no guitar.

The title track is sparse at first, there’s reverb lead bass played high on the neck ringing out and taking the job of a lead guitar, over a grimy, low-slung low-end bass, with some menacing, distorted vocals snarling low and dark. It’s more atmospheric than industrial, at least in the verses – twisty, grindy, reminiscent of PIG with its breaking out into a roaring anthemic chorus – but that chorus sounds like UK goth circa ’86 when it collided with hard rock. It’s huge, it’s hooky, and it’s strong.

‘Heart Shaped Hole’ is hard and heavy, aggressive but with some well-conceived texture and a production that brings everything to the fore simultaneously, amplifying the intensity. The sound is dense, and having bemoaned how a few bands have suffered from their drum machines being too low in the mix during live performances of late, Bellhead utilize theirs to full effect, pitching the beats well up in the mix. It smacks you right in the face and lends the songs an essential muscularity, providing a relentless driving force to which the bass welds itself. The rhythm section is the pulsating heart of any band: with Bellhead, with everything being the rhythm section, more or less, the pulsations aren’t just strong – this is a relentless blast of bass and beats. And there is not much let-up, either. ‘Shutters + Stutters’ is gritty and dark but with a serrated pop edge.

The piano intro to ‘No Dead Horses’ is something of a false lull, because it soon twists and snarls and sneers, emanating menace and sleaze while crunching overdrive grinds over a loping rhythm.

The brace of remixes tacked into the end may be nice bonuses on one hand, but feel perhaps superfluous on the other, with a Stabbing Westward remix of ‘Bad Taste’ from their previous release, and a remix of ‘Heart Shaped Hole’ wrapping it up. The remixes are solid, the former being a super-high-octane dancefloor stomping smasher. But the EP’s five tracks alone are an outstanding document that feels complete in itself., balancing fire and force and heavy atmosphere. But from whatever angle you view it, Threats is all killer, and finds Bellhead taking things to another level.

AA

AA

Atomic Disc eco-pack Horizontal

Watch: ‘Vex’ by Worst Ones

Posted: 31 March 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Philadelphia-based industrial sludge metal band WORST ONES has unleashed the new single ‘Vex’. The track is a crushing, no-holds-barred exploration of Americaʼs decaying ideals. Drawing from the bitter truth of the American Dream’s collapse, the track delves deep into the rise of fascism and the heartbreaking act of protest by soldier Aaron Bushnell, who self-immolated in protest of the war in Palestine.

Musically, ‘Vex’ fuses the raw aggression of ’90s hardcore with the sludgy weight of doom and the mechanical grind of industrial metal, drawing influences from the likes of Biohazard, Eyehategod, and Godflesh. A standout element of the track is the signature “sickness” – rhythmic noise loops that twist and churn alongside the brutal guitars and drums, creating a suffocating atmosphere of unease. It’s a track thatʼs as punishing as it is poignant, reflecting the chaotic, fractured state of the world today.

WORST ONES has explained the meaning of the song as follows:

“’Vex’ is an expression of disillusionment and resistance under the weight of a system built on lies. The lyrics question what freedom is when we live in a country that supports widespread oppression and death. There’s a sense of despair in the verses and searching for answers in the chorus but in the end the song turns into a statement of defiance and resilience.

The opening line “Wasted life is on us, covered all up in flames” addresses the heinous amount of people killed in war and how “the powers that be” utilize new types of bombs that don’t even leave behind a body, literally covering it up.

The lyric “Do you really believe the reaper will bring peace” challenges the concept that violence and killing would bring peace. It questions the false idea that through war or death there can be an end to suffering.

The final lines “They want to destroy us, but we can’t be beat" reaffirm that despite everything, resistance is still possible and even inevitable to triumph. It’s a defiant statement in the face of a system designed to crush individuals, but where the refusal to give up remains unbroken. I wanted to end the song with a statement of positivity and strength.

The story of Aaron Bushnell, who self-immolated in protest of the war in Palestine, deeply resonated with me. He was someone who joined the US Army, maybe out of ignorance or patriotism, only to feel betrayed by what he was asked to do. His act of protest was a refusal to be complicit in a system that had deceived him, and that sense of betrayal and defiance is something Vex reflects. It’s a statement of refusal in the face of violence, war, and manipulation.

As a Syrian American, these themes aren’t just abstract ideas to me. I’ve experienced how propaganda shapes people’s perceptions, how violence is justified in the name of power, and how the most vulnerable are always the first to suffer. I wrote the lyrics with a universal approach to the words because it’s not just now, it’s about the cycles of control, war, and resistance that keep repeating. This song is my way of expressing frustration, grief, and the refusal to be silenced.”

‘Vex’ is accompanied by a lyric video – watch it here:

AA

Worst Ones band photo

Protokoll 19 – When Will It End

Posted: 28 March 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

28th March 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Ahead of a new album release, Protokoll 19 have given us the single ‘When Will It End’. It’s a question I ask myself almost daily. Because fucking hell. Life. The world. Both seem to be an endless hell. You wake up, lug yourself to work, trudge home, you’re wiped, and it’s as much as you can do to eat food, maybe do some chores and get ready for bed again. You scan the news and it’s Armageddon, especially this last couple of months: the world is at war and the fascist agenda of the US ‘government’ sends tsunami-force reverberations around the globe daily. And it just goes on and on and on, forever the same. Here in the UK, our government has decided that mental health issues which [prevent people from working are being ‘overdiagnosed’. We’re all being spectacularly gaslit here. This isn’t a question of overdiagnosis: it’s a matter of how terrible, terrible times – we’re still not really over the effects of the pandemic, and everything since then has felt like the realisation of every dystopian fiction and the worst aspects of history recurring – affect people and send them into states of mental distress. When will it end?

This single, they tell us, ‘sets the tone of what can be expected from the album as a whole. When we find ourselves in a dark place, it often feels like there is no way out. The longer it goes on the more difficult it becomes to engage in anything. We isolate ourselves and see these thoughts as a burden. We’re haunted by these thoughts because they’re always lurking in the shadows.’

With this single, Protokoll 19 deliver a full-throttle stomping technoindustrial blast of skin-prickling tension. The vocals are mangled and gnarly and are more toward the black metal end of the spectrum, a demonic rasp that splutters gasoline and broken glass over the clean surface of hi-NRG synths and a pumping beat. Intense is the word. There is no snoozing through this.

AA

370822

PIG – Wrecked (2024 Remaster)

Posted: 25 February 2025 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Metropolis Records – 7th March 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

As Metropolis continue with their run of PIG reissues, the arrival of the remastered Wrecked reminds us of the run they had in the 90s. Having hardened up the sound showcased on debut album A Poke in the Eye… and follow-up Praise the Lard, and having toured with Nine Inch Nails in the Downward Spiral tour, PIG found themselves signed to Trent Reznor’s Nothing label for the release of Sinsation (1995), which melded the more experimental aspects of The Swining and Red Raw & Sore from a couple of years previous and cranked up the guitars – and the sleaze and depravity – to eleven. And after Sinsation came Wrecked, and having returned to Wax Trax!, in the US at least, the album was released first in Japan in ’96 and the US a year later with a substantially different tracklisting – and was an absolute bastard to get here in the UK in either form.

This version brings together the tracks which featured on both the original Japanese edition – which was criminally missing ‘No One Gets Out of Her Alive’ and ‘Contempt’ – and the American edition, which brought ‘The Book of Tequila’ and ‘Fuck Me I’m Sick’ in their place.

Wrecked very much represented PIG at their wildest, most wide-ranging, and arguably their heaviest. The title track drifts in on some mellow steel guitar country vibes and ambient chilling… and then gets gnarly with gritty industrial rigging and snarly vocals that are quintessential PIG. Raymond Watts may not have been in the best place during this period, but creatively… the music he was making was something else, and Wrecked stands up just as well now as it did on release. I’ve mentioned previously that PIG stand apart from their contemporaries, and while Watts was a touring member of Foetus in the late 80s and worked with JG Thirlwell when PIG was born, as well as being a member of KMFDM for a time, as much as those elements of aggrotech and industrial metal are core to the sound, Watts took it somewhere else entirely. Where? It’s hard to say: PIG’s work simply doesn’t conform to any genre forms or models – PIG just are PIG. While a couple of tracks had been previously released in different forms – the original versions of ‘Find It, Fuck It, Forget It’ and ‘Blades’ appeared on The Swining, released only in Japan in 1993 (prior to a 1999 US reissue) – it would be wrong to suggest that their inclusion on Wrecked suggested a lack of material, given just how radically different these versions are. The same is true of the reworked version of ‘My Sanctuary’, which appeared on Praise the Lard: expanded, more grandiose, more everything, the ‘Spent Sperm Mix’ taking the track to preposterous heights while audaciously combining industrial, techno, and gospel with orchestral strikes galore.

Since the US and Japanese editions included various alternative mixes, it would have been nice to see this version feature all sixteen tracks featured on the 2017 tour edition, which is arguably the definitive edition. But what we learn here is that you can’t have everything, and this edition at least has the majority of the prime cuts. Sequentially, it follows the Japanese edition, with the tracks which featured on the US release at the end.

The drumming on this album is brutal, choppy, the guitars cutty, stuttering, heavily distorted, but with a bright, clear, digital crispness that really slice hard. Watts growls, snarls and sneers, dark and salacious, and everything about Wrecked is harsh and ugly. ‘Find It, Fuck It, Forget It’ is a full-throttle beast of a track, with a sample-laden breakdown in the mid-section, with snippets of reports on American obesity and the like (in place of the sped-up snippet of ‘The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ on the original), and it’s pretty dark and unforgiving.

‘Blades’ is one of the greatest tracks ever recorded by PIG or anyone – it’s one of those songs that just does something to you. The ‘Slash Mix’ on here may not be the best version – for my money, I prefer the more orchestral original, but this rendition is dense and girthy, and fits with the sound of Wrecked. Then there’s ‘Save Me’, the album’s slowie, and so, so powerful. It takes ‘anthemic’ in a whole new direction.

Watts has always made music with a boldly theatrical approach to the industrial template – and Wrecked really turns up the dial on everything – density, volume, aggression, intensity, and this expanded reissue is an essential document in the broader industrial oeuvre. It’s also an outstanding album in its own right.

AA

67fd98d7819df26e756c1ecba56842acbbd35016

Eville – Plaything

Posted: 14 February 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

14th February 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Eville, who have been gaining momentum – and radio play – for a while, soared to a new peak with ‘Ballistic’ late last year. While sonically encapsulating the title, it also distilled the very essence of the band into THE most explosive two-and-a-bit minutes of no-messing nu-metal.

If ‘Plaything’ suggests something more cuddly, think again. Once again, they tap that classic nu-metal structure of a quiet but tetchy intro, jittery electronics by way of an intro – Something that can be traced back to Pitch Shifter’s first couple of albums back in the early 90s. ‘Gritter’ from Submit is exemplary, and of course not only would Pitch Shifter transition to an overtly nu-metal sound at the turn of the millennium, incorporating elements of drum ‘n’ bass in their sound in the late 90s, but guitarist Jim Davis played with both Pitchshifter (as they became) and The Prodigy. This detour is simply to illustrate the crossover between genres, and to contextualise the sound Eville have absolutely mailed – because after this tense, tetchy intro, the monumental riff hits, and hits hard, and immediately hits an irresistible groove.

A mere ten seconds in, and it’s clear that this is going to be a killer – and it is.

‘I might look cute but Imma get gnarly / I can get nasty, nothing gets past me,’ Eva Sheldreake warns, picking up the lyrical thread of ‘Ballistic’ and presenting a strong feminist stance. The message is direct and clear, and the band’s photos back it up: whether the outfit is a pink bikini or decorating garb, never judge a woman by her outfit, and never assume she’s lacking capability, whether it’s to do DIY or play guitar and rock out, hard.

‘Plaything’ certainly rocks out, and hard. The sheer density of the sound kicks the air out of your lungs, while the chorus hook is as strong as they come. The mid-section goes full Slipknot, the barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat referenced in the lyrics translating to the brutal delivery.

Where Eville stand out – apart from on every level – is in the way they bring ultra-pro, radio-quality production and accessible melody to massively hefty, bludgeoning metal. If there was ever any doubt that they should be playing festivals rather than pubs, ‘Plaything’ obliterates it. No two ways about it: these guys are ready to conquer the world.

Listen: ‘Devil’s Work’ by Psyclon Nine

Posted: 14 February 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

With the US cult act Psyclon Nine currently midway through a North American tour, ‘Devil’s Work’ is the second boundary breaking single to be lifted from their forthcoming new album. Possessing a similar brooding, menacing quality to its recent predecessor, ‘I Choose Violence’, both songs are included on And Then Oblivion, set for release on 21st March 2025 via Metropolis Records.

Melding elements of Industrial Rock, Metal, Deathcore, Ambient and Trap, band leader Nero Bellum has previously stated that his modus operandi is “to break as many genre limitations as possible, while staying true to the concepts and imagery that Psyclon Nine evokes.”

AA

a4254559533_10

Older Entries
Newer Entries