San Diego, California is not known for its industrial music scene, which is a criminal oversight. Over the years, San Diego has been home to such heavy luminaries as W.A.S.T.E., Author & Punisher, and Crash Worship. Throwing their own hat in the ring was the band Squirrelly Arts, whose aggressive metal-fueled take on the genre was a welcome addition to the San Diego musical landscape.
I was crestfallen when SA announced its hiatus. Rarely has ruining my hearing been so much fun. So I was elated upon hearing SA mastermind Sean Miller announce his new project, HATE FUELED ///ACH1NE and its release, Hate_Speech.
This five-song EP is raw naked aggression; the type of rhythmic noise that San Diego is slowly forming a reputation for.
The title track lyrics read like a shopping list of all the things that our society holds dear but should be held to scrutiny:
Fuck your community_
Fuck your culture_
Fuck society_
Fuck your country_
Fuck your self-esteem_
Fuck your confidence_
Fuck your pr*de_
Exploit your suffering_
And the lyrics don’t let up. On [H.F.M.], the nihilism is taken up a notch:
Kill everyone_
Destroy everything_
Leave nothing behind_
Kill everyone_
Destroy everything_
Regret nothing_
…You get the idea. This is NOT a record that’s meant to leave a warm fuzzy feeling in your tummy. And yet, strangely, the rhythmic cadence gives these songs a perverse singalong quality, as further evidenced on Deep_Cut.
Suicide_On_Repeat slows things down a bit, allowing the song to grind sensually as a story of necessary self-destruction and unwelcome resurrection unfolds.
Isolation closes things out. This creepy instrumental allows HATE FUELED ///ACH1NE to stretch its wings sonically and create an almost cinematic sonic picture without the confines of any standard rock/pop song structure.
Hate_Speech is a winner in my book. HATE FUELED ///ACH1NE is a band that San Diego can be proud of and the rest of the country should take notice.
https://hfmachine.bandcamp.com/album/hate-speech