User
Reviews 21 Approval 95%
Soundoffs 62 Album Ratings 483 Objectivity 62%
Last Active 10-30-22 11:20 pm Joined 06-28-18
Review Comments 494
| Industrial - ish Music in 2024
It was a slow year in the genre. Really only the EBM forms are still thriving, and even then, it was more great SONGS rather than great ALBUMS | 1 |  | Ministry HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES
The overall 2024 ALBUM quality in the genre was pretty much 3.0 - 3.5 at best, in my opinion.
Yeah, Marilyn Manson, Ministry and KMFDM all put out decent records, but I haven’t gone back to the latter two albums -- not for whole-album listens anyway -- and Marilyn Manson has never done anything for me beyond The Beautiful People. Middle shelf.
There were only a few releases that I got excited enough about to rate as “superb,” and I’ve since downgraded Bill Leeb’s to a 3.5. It just doesn’t have the staying power of a 4.5. | 2 |  | KMFDM Let Go
I found a lot of songs I liked in 2024, though. I posted ten of them on my YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNTHb1H0bZkIBGBWz0zR5N4y64ga7K6Mp
This list is just a reflection of that playlist, minus Ministry and KMFDM, which Industrial fans already know about | 3 |  | Kordhell Beat Tape 3
Don't know exactly what to call this stuff, but I love it. "Hip-Hop/Techno/Industrial/noise" might be passable, using Sputnik tags alone. Feels like it needs something more specific
Vote for best album (EP) of the year: 4.5/5 | 4 |  | HORSKH BODY
Industrial-Metal with “Nu” flavors, especially the song on the playlist, “Do It.”
My favorite track on this record -- Body Building -- is an aggressive chugga-track that I didn’t include on the YouTube list because there’s enough repetitive sequencing on the EBM tracks already on there.
I like the Nu-Metal flavors well enough, but I’ll probably be going back to Body Building most often | 5 |  | Bill Leeb Model Kollapse
You probably know about this release already if you’re into this kind of music. I think it’s his best work -- from any project -- since FLA’s Echogenetic | 6 |  | Wumpscut DJ Dwarf 24
Blutengel, Leather Strip and, of course, Wumpscut all released more music this year. They release material like dandelion seeds in a breeze. Unhappily it’s all usually cookie-cutter.
The sample I put on the playlist fuck’n rips, though.
I doubt I’ll ever tire of this one | 7 |  | I Ya Toyah DRAMA
I dropped a song from this album on the playlist that is a remix done by Chicago’s Stabbing Westward. Her version is great, but this remix rocks
Hard to go wrong with Chris Hall | 8 |  | Brittany Bindrim Velella Velella
I Ya Toyah’s fellow Chicagoan Brittany Bindrim, former vocalist for I:Scintilla --who I also suspect is a possible rival to I Ya Toyah in the Chicago Industrial niche; but of course I can’t actually know this --- also released a solo album.
Velella Velella is good but, sorry Brittany, I guess I like I Ya Toyah’s a little better. Nothing personal. | 9 |  | Funker Vogt Death Seed
This, their 13th album release, is by no means their best album. But the new vocalist gives it the feel of a fresh start.
However, “fresh” will be badly needed heading into a future 14th album. | 10 |  | Menschdefekt Rays Of Light
It’s hard to know if this is an album or an EP. It’s got 15-tracks, but it’s actually five songs over five different basslines mixed into three sets, with each song featuring a different vocalist in a variety of styles. If that makes sense.
Anyway, my favorite is the harsh-vocal mix of “Shine,” but I put the clean, lady-song version on the playlist; there are enough angsty dudes on there as it is | 11 |  | Acylum Zuchthaus
I don’t like this one as much as their 2021 release, but I suspect it will be more palatable to fans of The Enemy and Karzinom, to which it more closely hews.
The playlist contains a remix of “Kalashnikov.” The original is great, but it’s hard to wrong with a Wumpscut remix | 12 |  | C-Lekktor 2.0
C-Lekktor is ALMOST my favorite band of the Mexican Aggrotech ravers. And he definitely would be at the top if I liked the vocals better. But he does this weird thing that seems to start with a death growl, then he runs it through a processor and layers it, then -- here's the weird part --- changes the intonation at the end of each lyrical phrase. Or at least that's my guess as to what he's doing. Anyway the result is a really awkward effect that I can’t accept completely.
I wish he’d just go with a regulation-issue Aggrotech vocal style like his compatriots, Amduscia and Hocico.
Still, C-Lekktor’s music is my favorite of the three, and it’s usually good enough for me to tune-out the awkwardness
This album is mostly a compilation, but not necessarily a best of. Still some good tracks | 13 |  | Dawn Of Ashes Reopening the Scars
Kristof Bathory is arguably the most versatile vocalist in the genre after Ogre -- a mix of whispers, spoken words, processed hardcore, and death growls of various depth are sometimes featured in the same song.
The music on the track "Anhedonia" --- meaning roughly “the inability to feel happiness” --- is absolutely top shelf in the Grim department of Dark-Elektro. I especially love the creepy, atonal, oriental-desert harmonies that sound like they were greatly influenced by the Dune (2021) soundtrack.
Anhedonia would be a perfect song if it wasn’t accompanied by my LEAST favorite of Bathory's vocals, which is off-the-hook Cannibal Corpse deep and guttural and just doesn't work for me. There are a couple other good tracks with "lighter" vocals, but most of the album is horror ambient and pretty much like the previous one, with less actual music. My love for the music of Anhedonia makes this record a huge disappointment | 14 |  | Ashbury Heights Ghost House Sessions, Vol. 1
Their fast music is better than their slow stuff | |
kildare
01.01.25 | YouTube playlist of the above, a little out of order:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNTHb1H0bZkIBGBWz0zR5N4y64ga7K6Mp
| kkarron
01.01.25 | aight gonna check some of this stuff out | kildare
01.01.25 | Too much disco? This is definitely a super EBM-heavy list, but there really wasn't anything in the genre outside the big ones at 1 and 2 that had a lot of guitars. Horskh does have some guitars,but they're a little KORNy, and probably a turn off for traditionalists.
A lot of people might complain (you, kkarron?) that the stuff after 2 isn't even really "Industrial." But most of these bands share stages at the big festivals in Europe, and they're more or less derivative of Front 242 and Die Krupps, sold beside Pigface(?) and Sister Machine Gun on the WaxTrax label in the States. They seem incompatible today, but not really circa 1990. Anyway it wasn't as stark of a difference as Ministry and Poison, say. So "Industrial" seems a useful name, if only, like, barely accurate | Ladron93
01.02.25 | Kordhell sounds like the new genre called phonk. I can't say it's my thing at the time I'm writing this.
Brittany Bindrim has one song I thought it was alright. I'll give her album a listen.
I'm not enthused the industrial or EBM music that was released last year lately.
Happy late New Year, kildare. | artificialbox
01.03.25 | check out Norillag - The Union of Death
https://norillag.bandcamp.com/album/the-union-of-death | kildare
01.03.25 | @Ladron: Thanks for the "Phonk" suggestion. I'll have to dig a little more into it. I can't say it's going to be my favorite new thing, but it's definitely slightly different from anything I've ever heard.
@artificialbox: Loved the Norillag. Getting close to True industrial on that one -- grinds and metallic drums. Almost pre-Godfleshy. Einsturzende Neubauten 2.0? Great rec |
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