‘Broken Heart’ / ‘Fire’ is a brand new double AA single by the darkwave and goth scene leaders Clan of Xymox. Out today (23rd September), it is the first new music by the group since the release of their ‘Exodus’ album in mid-2024.
Clan of Xymox co-founder and frontman Ronny Moorings describes ‘Broken Heart’ as “a journey through heartbreak, desire and emotional combustion.” Driven by haunting synths, a hypnotic pulse and melancholic vocals, his aim with the song was “to capture the tension between losing someone and still being consumed by them.”
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Formed in the Netherlands in 1982, Clan of Xymox were originally signed to 4AD and established a cult following in the UK and mainland Europe with a highly atmospheric post-punk sound. The group enjoyed US chart success after signing to Polygram in the late-‘80s and shifting into a more commercial synth-pop direction that incorporated alternative dance elements, but it was the resurgence of the gothic and electro-industrial rock scenes a decade later that gave Moorings and his bandmates a fresh impetus from which they have prospered ever since.
The group have maintained a consistent international presence with regular releases and tours, with their 2026 schedule including main stage performances at the renowned WGT-Leipzig and M’era Luna festivals. Their live itinerary to the end of 2026 is as follows:
2nd October ROME Traffic Club (IT) 3rd October NAPLES Lizard Club (IT) 7th November BOCHUM Gleis 9 (DE) 10th November MUNICH Strom (DE) 11th November VIENNA Chelsea (AT) 12th November BUDAPEST A38 (HU) 13th November ZAGREB Culture Factory (HR) 21st November VALENCIA Sala Jerusalem (ES) 27th November ZABRZE Klub Ck Wiatrak (PL) 5th December STRASBOURG La Laiterie (FR)
Founded by US electronic musician Gary Zon in 2000, Dismantled issued five albums over the next decade that blended multi-layered electro-industrial music with melodic trance elements, resulting in a darkly brooding and futuristic sound.
‘Zero’ is the first single to be lifted from a long-awaited sixth album entitled Endless that is set for release on 20th November via Metropolis Records. A futuristic, cyberpunk dancefloor number crawling with nanowires and melodic synth-pop vocals filled with noise, the song looks back to the halcyon days of 2006 when the third Dismantled album Standard Issue was released and compares it with the general feeling of emptiness felt in society today.
‘Endless’ was primarily recorded in Oregon and completed in Southern California. Zon describes it as his most cohesive work yet and a record that has helped him rediscover the sound that gave the project its unique appeal at the outset. He also states that fans will spot deliberate references to previously released songs.
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Having begun making electronic music in 2000, Gary Zon soon came up with a brand of complex yet melodic electro-industrial and trance sounds that saw him compared to peers such as Front Line Assembly, Haujobb and Wumpscut.
Dismantled signed to Metropolis Records and issued a self-titled album in 2002. It was followed by the acclaimed Post-Nuclear (2004), a record that introduced a clearer vocal style into what was otherwise a grittier and more organic soundscape. Standard Issue (2006) was previewed with Breed To Death, an EP that included remixes of new and already released songs by the likes of Psyclon Nine, Haujobb and Wumpscut, and was then followed by a lengthy period of touring ahead of the release of fourth album, When I’m Dead (2007).
US and European tours with VNV Nation, Apoptygma Berzerk and Combichrist preceded the ‘The War Inside Me’ (2011), the most aggressive Dismantled output to date. Promoted on a tour with Front Line Assembly, it was followed by an EP, Whole Wide World (2012) and two further EPs, The Hero (2016) and No Escape (2020).
Red Lines, the new EP from international electro-industrial group Damage Control – centred around a core quartet of Bill Barsby, Richard Thacker and Alex Wise (all based in Australia), plus Markus App from Germany – and finds them in collaboration with the Canadian duo OHMelectronic.
“‘Red Lines’ is about psychological warfare, the endless cycle of human conflict and the hunger for power that lies in the hearts of men,” says Huxtable of the EP title track. “While the lyrics were inspired by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the same themes haunt America and it’s global conflicts. As tyranny and the fog of war repeats itself through every age, so too does the hope that we learn from our mistakes.”
I only wish I had that same hope, could share that optimism: the trouble is, we never do seem to learn from our mistakes. One might have thought that we – as a species – would have learned from the outcomes of two worlds wars, the second of which involved genocide and nuclear annihilation. Yet somehow, we’re in a place where to suggest that there’s a genocide taking place in Gaza is controversial, and we have world leaders who are so unpredictable that in recent months, I’ve taken to checking news sites on my phone on waking at 5am to make sure the world hasn’t ended. But then, it’s not just world leaders who seem perilously close to the button – because despite myriad dystopian sci-fi works detailing how AI will destroy us, those who run the multi-billion dollar corporations developing it are more interested in next year’s profits than the future of humanity. I say humanity, but something has changed in recent years. A trigger has flipped. Where is the humanity?
Russia had seemingly been biding their time during the pandemic, and pounced on Ukraine the moment restrictions were lifted. But the whole world changed during the pandemic: people emerged from restrictions fired up and angry. The mask – and the gloves – were off. The evidence was plain to see: people were suddenly ok driving aggressively, yelling at random strangers in the street, and being openly racist. Politics turned a new shade of ugly, and while America leads the way there, the rest of the world isn’t far behind, and war is all around us and escalating by the week, to the point that much conflict around the globe goes unreported in Western media. Even the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, have seemingly faded into the background in much of the news media, giving the impression that it’s mundane and life goes on. What the actual fuck happened? Is this really where we are, who we are?
Before we arrive at ‘Red Lines’, the EP’s lead – and title- track, the percussion-driven ‘Manifesto’ pounds in, and thunders and pumps hard under a thick sonic haze. It’s a quintessential techno-electro / industrial cut, which reaches back to the late 80s and early 90s Wax Trax! catalogue for references.
The title track is tight and oppressive, quiet, queasy, dense, grinding bass with serrated edges, and thudding beats are welded together as the backdrop to minimal synths wavering cautiously. The vocal is understated, monotone, but breathy, while reeling off a list of horrors. By the end, the sensation is suffocation, and there is no room, and no air, to breathe. It’s not only Damage Control at their absolute best, but one of the most gripping tracks in the genre in a while. It’s the claustrophobic intensity that makes it.
‘Modernity’ is tense and dense, a pumping hard-edge disco groove, and a snarling response to the to the dark and difficult word in which we find ourselves. It marks a fitting close to a powerful document of these difficult and alienating times.
Stockholm post-punk trio Then Comes Silence presents ‘Remaker Redeemer’, the second single from their forthcoming Requiem Ballroom album, due in November via Metropolis Records. The music video, filmed by Damon Zurawski of Future Legends Films, captures the song perfectly, descending into the space between death and rebirth, where the final journey into darkness becomes a passage toward transformation, renewal and the possibility of another world.
Then Comes Silence has also just launched their European tour, which runs throughout September and October, bringing them to venues and like-minded music lovers in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Czech Republic, before returning home to Sweden for the final show on this leg.
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A tightly focused trio since 2022, Then Comes Silence was formed in 2012 by vocalist-bassist Alex Svenson in 2012. Drummer Jonas Fransson and guitarist Hugo Zombie, round out the band in its most direct, powerful and uncompromising form. One of the leading names on today’s goth, post-punk and darkwave scene, they are driven by a fascination with horror, the occult and the raw intensity of underground music, having forged a distinctive sound and a devoted international following.
The Requiem Ballroom album itself is divided into two parts: ‘Ballroom’ was mixed by Jon Bordon (Nicole Sabouné, Melody Club, The Exploding Boy) and the ‘Requiem’ half was mixed byTom van Heesch (Rammstein, Apocalyptica, Backyard Babies). Svante Forsbäck / Chartmakers (Rammstein, Amaranthe, Ville Valo, The Rasmus, Apocalyptica) assumed mastering duties. ”Remaker Redeemer introduces the second part of the album ‘Requiem Ballroom’. It’s about new life, and being reborn with the old sins washed away. A kind of cleansing, a fresh start, and the feeling of beginning again. The choice of instruments and sound on this track is a way to explore something different this time,” says Alex Svenson.
“Death is generally regarded, across many cultures, as the final blackout where nothing follows. Yet in another sense, death can also serve as a metaphor for change and transformation. To take the next step, change is inevitable.”
Then Comes Silence earlier released ‘Judgement Day’, a driving anthem that embraces failure, reckless choices and the thrill of living without regrets, embracing a final celebration before the inevitable reckoning. The vivid behind-the-scenes documentary by Marzipan Moonlight offers a glimpse into the video’s creation and the thriving spirit of Stockholm’s goth community.
LIVE DATES SEP. 11 - Glain, Belgium @ Deux Ours SEP. 12 – Rotterdam-Albrandswaard, Netherlands @ Baroeg Open Air 2026 SEP. 13 - Rennes, France @ Brewklyn SEP. 14 - Paris, France @ Le Chinois SEP. 15 - Rezé, France @ Cold Crash SEP. 16 - Lyon, France @ Rock N’Eat SEP. 17 - Marseille, France @ Le Molotov SEP. 18 - Torino, Italy @ Ziggy Club SEP. 19 - Castelfranco Veneto, Italy @ Sale Improve SEP. 20 - Hlavní Město Praha, Czechia @ Subzero OCT. 24 - Stockholm, Sweden @ Kollektivet Livet
Lately, PIG’s rate of output has been nothing short of phenomenal. Having released the album Hurt People Hurt in May, they’ve just embarked on a substantial, two-month long tour of North America and Canada, and to coincide with that, they’ve not only got a remix EP, but also Dirt Box, which features four new songs paired with a remix of each, making for another album-length release.
There is, to an extent, a sense that if you’ve been following recent PIG releases, you’ll have a reasonable idea of what to expect. Since resurrecting his porcine project in 2016, Raymond Watts has discovered that the swine yields pearls when plundering a seam which places a uniquely gritty spin on glam ground up with industrial and greased with S&M sleaze and a dash of religion for that extra spice. This isn’t to say that PIG albums have fallen to the formulaic, so much as the fact that they’ve found their groove, and the new material over the last ten years hasn’t so much flowed, as been in full spate. It’s working out petty nicely, too. Despite touring as the support for Nine Inch Nails on the seminal Downward Spiral tour and having albums released on Reznor’s label in the mid-90s, PIG remained eternal outsiders, perhaps being just that bit too weird and eclectic for the prevailing tastes at the time. So while NIN were hailed by the press as being groundbreaking, Watts’ work, which tossed in classical samples, strings and all sorts into the grinding industrial mix, taking cues from mentor and collaborator JG Thirlwell, AKA Foetus, the outsider’s outsider – was simply three steps too far. But now… it seems that having tempered the hybridity and experimentalism a shade, the world has finally come around to PIG, with the likes of Classic Rock and Vive Le Rock raving about Hurt People Hurt. I think it was Genesis P-Orridge who made a comment along the lines that if you stick around long enough, you’ll come to be accepted, and whoever it was, this certainly seems true of PIG, who’ve been going nearly forty years now, with the release of debut single ‘Never for Fun’ and album A Poke in the Eye… With a Sharp Stick being released in 1988.
Lead single and EP opener, ‘An American Ideal of Beauty’ starts out sounding like Watts may have jumped the shark – or the wall of Marshall stacks – and gone straight-up spandex hair metal on us, or perhaps even all-out Kiss, but then the quintessential guitar chug of Jim Davies cuts in and grinds hard and we get to breathe a sigh of relief. And here we go: religious-sounding ululations ring out against a bubbling synth bass. ‘Put up, shut up! Do your duty!’ Watts snarls against a backdrop of chugging rhythm guitars and layer upon layer of detail – and the truth is, this is as boldly extravagant in its sonic span as the most revered work among fans, namely the material which featured on Red, Raw and Sore, Sinsation, and Wrecked, which saw Watts colliding insane ambition with some inspired songwriting. Yep, he’s still got it, and any recognition, however belated, is well-deserved. But does this mean that PIG are mainstream now, and beyond the remit of Aural Aggravation? I don’t think so. They’re not about to be played on the Radio 1 breakfast show, I’ve been a fan since the early 90s, and Raymond Watts will forever be one of my favourite interview subjects when we met in York a few years ago.
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After the rabid industrial glam grind of ‘Your Reptilian Overlord Presents’, ‘Infidel’ slows the pace and finds Watts go Bowie circa Outside with a heavy dose of darkwave in the mix. With a strong hook and a poppy undercurrent, it showcases the range and quality of the songwriting that sets PIG apart from many of their peers – not that they really have any at this point. They’ve diverged a long way from the acts that emerged around the same time on Wax Trax! evolving along a very different trajectory from, say, KMFDM (of whom Watts was a member) or Ministry. ‘Butterfly’ is a churning, mutant beast of a tune, and has the makings of a future classic given time to embed.
The remixes… well, they’re remixes. In their favour, they’re very different from the original versions. The Cyanotic remix of ‘Your Reptilian Overlord Presents’ is up first, and it’s a noisy, fucked-up industrial blast reminiscent of JG Thirlwell’s remixes of NIN. Admittedly, it’s nowhere near a extreme as his contributions on Fixed, but they set new precedents when it came to remixes, and the world has never been the same since. The beat calls to mind early 00s Pitch Shifter, and it makes for an intense four and a half minutes. The surprisingly mellow Combichrist remix of ‘Butterfly’ is the other standout: in stripping the song back and going for a more darkwave backing to Watt’s gnarly vocal, it makes for a radical transformation.
What’s remarkable is that in producing an album a year – give or take – plus EPs of offcuts and remixes in between – the standard of PIG releases hasn’t only been consistent, but continues to reach new heights. Instead of running out of ideas, PIG are surging with creativity and riding the crest of a wave.
Long held in high regard for a sound that is a modern and unique take on classic goth and post-punk, Swedish trio Then Comes Silence have released a brand new single entitled ‘Judgement Day’. It is the first to be lifted from Requiem Ballroom, their new studio album out on 20th November.
“This song is about failure, bad decisions and poor behaviour – those who will be the first in line on doomsday,” the band explain. Beginning with a catchy Euro techno melody, the surprising intro creates a contrast to the band’s established roots from the outset and serves as a metaphor for the theme of the song. The band itself ‘fails’ by letting something completely unexpected and out of character take over.
A video for ‘Judgement Day’ has been directed by Damon Zurawski of Future Legends Films and can be seen here:
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Requiem Ballroom will be the follow-up to Trickery, the seventh full-length album by Then Comes Silence released in 2024. Collecting accolades galore, the UK’s Classic Rock magazine described it as “the post-punk influence of Bauhaus or Joy Division offset by an ’80s windblown, cinematic sense of drama presented with silky production and confidence.” Vive Le Rock concurred, remarking on its “huge, spectral sound that cascades the post-punk genres seamlessly whilst delivering a unique and compelling sound that is as captivatingly gripping as it is intense.”
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.
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.”
‘Inside’ is the latest music video by Ships In The Night, the ethereal darkwave project of Alethea Leventhal. Renowned for her distinctive electronic production technique and delicate yet mesmerising voice, Ships in the Night creates dark pop songs that feel both intimate and cinematic.
Included on the 2025 album Protection Spells, a bold and powerful collection informed by trauma, magic, darkness and hope, ‘Inside’ balances opposing forces of stillness and tension, vulnerability and resolve. The video for it is a glimpse into a world of transformation, with creatures hatching, plants unfurling and everything growing and finding its way.
“This song is about looking for feelings of safety and comfort in a world that is out of our control,” explains Leventhal. "It’s about finding places where you can just exist and be yourself. It’s about nurturing community, lifting up queer spaces and reaching for utopia.”
The pioneering electronic dance act Lords of Acid have released their third single of 2026. Blending infectious electronic beats, Latin-inspired hooks and the tongue-in-cheek attitude that has made the group a cult favourite all over the globe, ‘El Mundo Está Loco’ (The World Is Crazy) is a dance floor anthem for a world that seems to be getting crazier by the day.
Driven by an irresistible chorus and a playful exchange between Lords of Acid and the New York City-based duo Tony & The Kiki, the song captures the chaos, absurdity and excitement of modern life while inviting listeners to do the only sensible thing left….dance. Because, when the world goes crazy, turn up the music.
Tony & The Kiki blend gritty NYC glamour, disco decadence, punk, soul and high-voltage anthems into an unapologetically queer rock-and-roll spectacle. Channelling the spirit of Blondie, Queen and Scissor Sisters through a modern, theatrical, arena-ready lens, they have built a significant cult following and been praised by icons that include Lady Gaga, Celine Dion, Cyndi Lauper, Grace Slick and even Fred Durst.
It quickly became clear that Tony & The Kiki belonged in the Lords of Acid universe, so the idea of having them guest on ‘El Mundo Está Loco’ felt like the perfect collaboration – loud, chaotic, sexy, theatrical and completely unhinged in all the right ways. The duo also performed as one of the guest acts on the recently completed ‘Cheeky Freaky Tour’ of the USA with Lords of Acid.
