Tag: Industrial Music

Sounds and Shadows June 2022 Darkscene Singles Chart

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It is once again time to reveal the winners of our monthly darkscene singles chart chosen by the Sounds and Shadows collective. Each month we take submissions for the top single releases in Goth/Industrial/Darkwave/Coldwave/Shoegaze/EDM whatever. Then votes our cast by the Artists, Djs, Fans, promotors, reviewers in our group. This month of course since my band Amaranth had a single in the chart, I am way behind. This chart seems to always elevate the cutting edge in what is happening in our scene. Below you will find the chart and a link to all the bands that won in June. If you have a release in July, make sure to post it in our Facebook group.

  1. Dead Cool – Send Me An Angel (Real Life Cover)
  2. Blood Dance – Wicked King
  3. The Amaranth – Gothtimist
  4. Kill Shelter (Feat: Agent Side Grinder) – The Necklace
  5. Vaselyne – Here To Begin
  6. Silver Walks – Albatross
  7. Bellhead – No Dead Horses
  8. La Muerta – Headhunter
  9. Spankthenun – I Self Me
  10. Sea Lungs – Truffle Pig

DEAD COOL – Send Me An Angel – From Wilmington, North Carolina the darkwave duo of Johnny and Angela Yeagher made this broken glass glittering on concrete version of the 1989 Real Life dance classic. A cool take on the original with much more menace to change the feeling. The band continues to be a fan favorite with our listeners and a number 1 single win speaks to their bright future.

▶︎ Send Me An Angel | DEAD COOL (bandcamp.com)

Blood Dance – Wicked King – Having the Mexico City Electro Goth make #2 on our chart is a big deal to me. Casting a light on the incredible Latin darkscene movement has been a major goal of mine this year. Seeing our members embrace this sinister blend of traditional goth and cold wave atmosphere fills my heart with delight. Only a few singles out for the band so far and already they are turning heads in the scene.

Wicked King | Blood Dance (bandcamp.com)

The Amaranth – Gothtimist – Now it is always awkward tooting your own horn. This is the first time our band Amaranth from Kalamazoo MI has had a song in the chart. This one is really special for me. It is the idea behind Sounds and Shadows in sonic form. Bringing together an enormous crew of guest musicians, artists, producers, and friends. To create a song which speaks to the importance of our friends in the scene listing us up when times are darkest.

Jason Corbett (Actors) , Jean-Marc Lederman (The The; Gene Loves Jezebel; Fad Gadget; The Weathermen; Rohn-Lederman), Dan Milligan (The Joy Thieves; The Burying Kind), Kimberly Kornmeier (Bow Ever Down), Katy May (Katy Needs A Life), Saphira Vee, Brian Graupner (gothsicles; Gasoline Invertebrate) , Ryan Flint (WitchHands), Matt McIntosh (A Cloud of Ravens). Cover Art: Albie Mason (Scary Black) Mastering : Pete Burn (Kill Shelter)

Gothtimist | The Amaranth (bandcamp.com)

Kill Shelter (Feat: Agent Side Grinder) – The Necklace – Speaking of Pete Burn the incredible Scotsman who made the #1 album of 2019 “Damage” has returned to that core concept with the latest single. Much of Pete’s work features guest vocalists. This first single off the upcoming 7/15/22 album Asylum has world renown Swedish Post Punk band Agent Side Grinder. Crashing and slashing with emotion and runaway train basslines. The melody here is infectious and twists suddenly through old city streets. To say I am waiting for this album with baited breath is an understatement. We have an upcoming interview with Pete. If Kill Shelter isn’t firmly on your radar they need to me.

▶︎ Asylum [US Version] | Kill Shelter (bandcamp.com)

Vaselyne – Here To Begin – From Amsterdam, Netherlands this is the second month in a row the COP International band has had a single high in the charts. Yvette Winkler and Frank Weyzig have another soulful organic that harkens to early Projekt record sounds. Crashing waves of sound and salt battering the rocks in an endless struggle that feels epic in scope. I feel like Frank takes all the right turns here. Including a blistering solo around 3 minutes. Yvette gets to show her vocal range and soul on this track. I see a widow on the cliffside tearing at her hair in anguish, waiting for a ship she knows is never making it back to shore.

Here To Begin | Vaselyne (bandcamp.com)

silver walks – Albatross – New resident of New York Daniel McCullough has assembled an Avengers team of electronic talent to release this long awaited album. This month’s single is another textural story delicately crafted. This psychedelic electro goth just stands out fresh against the backdrop. I love the politically charged themes beneath the historical feel. This record is an early contender for top albums of the year.

Silver Walks is Dan Mccullough with Tim Heireth, Ian Staer, Eva X, Stella Soleil, Marc Heal, James Francis, John Jacobus, Ryan Mast, Coral Scere and you

albatross | silver walks (bandcamp.com)

Bellhead – No Dead Horses – Special release from Chicago double bass duo Bellhead on Give/Take records. I really like the theatric dark indie style here. Karen and Ivan always know how to find a new swing to their core concept. This single has some Nick Cave meets Jesus and Mary Chain vibes set in the south-west desert wasteland. They have a brilliant chemistry of call and answer vocals that reminds me why i fell in love with the Pixies.

No Dead Horses | Bellhead | GIVE/TAKE (bandcamp.com)

LA MUERTE – Headhunter – This Belgian band has been a part of the scene a long time. In June they released a new album on COP International which features this cover of the Front 242 classic. This is a great call in of legendary industrial classic to create a fire wizard space rock version of the chant. La Muerte is smashing walls to get back into your life or opening a door to find an underground classic for the first time.

Headhunter | LA MUERTE (bandcamp.com)

spankthenun – I Self Me – Incandescent post apocalypse burner from Texas Industrial guru Eric Hanes. Badass sledgehammer smacks on the Depeche Mode dance club. I love the filthy edge that Eric soaks every delicious pop hook in. An innovator and hat aficionado you need to be aware of.

I SELF ME (single) | spankthenun (bandcamp.com)

Sea Lungs – Truffle Pig – An amazing new Australian super band with another smash single. This is a criminally underrated band with a unique throwback shadowy madness that darts between ahead of it’s time and raw with nostalgia. Ant Bannister does a masterful job of mixing to create a strange stomping Syd Barret fighting The Damned in an Ed Wood film sound. Is that description as strange as it feels. Good, unique sounds should feel that way. Jarrad Robertson and Andi Lennon are a song writing force that needs attention.

Truffle Pig | Sea Lungs (bandcamp.com)

Please take a moment to listen to these amazing artists, and submit your single to Sounds and Shadows July releases.

KMFDM’s Reunion Record ‘Attak’ Serves As A Memory Of A Post-Mass Tragedy World, And How Public Opinion Reigns Supreme

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Being a mid-Nineties baby, I don’t have many memories of a world pre-Columbine or pre-9/11. I’ve been through my fair share of security checkpoints, I’ve been through my fair share of active shooter drills, and have been in lockdown situations more times than I care to count. It is a scary world we live in these days, but what doesn’t seem to change are the arguments we hear for the supposed causes of these mass casualty events. It’s the media, it’s the suggestible youth, it’s those damn foreigners, so on and so forth. To say that the music world was rocked by the events of both Columbine and 9/11 is to put it gently. Acts such as Marilyn Manson and Slayer were crucified in the media, but perhaps none was caught in the crossfire more than a band who had just disbanded months prior: the mighty purveyors of the “Ultra Heavy Beat,” KMFDM.

The band took a beating in the media due to the coincidence of their Adios record releasing on April 20th, 1999, the same day as the Columbine tragedy. Further, several of the band’s songs, namely tracks like “Son of a Gun” and “Stray Bullet” were quoted on one of the shooter’s websites ahead of the shooting, and of course the media added that and the band’s German roots and arrived at Nazism overtaking these poor lost souls.

Deep exhale of exasperation…

By the beginning of 2001, KMFDM reformed, and while Günter Schulz and En Esch opted not to partake, Sascha Konietzko and Tim Sköld, the remaining members, added singer Lucia Cifarelli, formerly of the band Drill, as well as previous co-conspirators Bill Rieflin and Raymond Watts. While En Esch lauded his creative freedom, Konietzko was happy to see a more positive creative direction, not to mention fewer egos driving the machine forward. Add to this a change of record label, from the commercially demanding Universal to the industrial-friendly Metropolis, and on March 19, 2002, Attak was released.

Fun fact: the idea was thrown around to use Middle Eastern writing to spell out the album’s title, which would have been written as Attaq, but after the shit hit the fan with Columbine, not to mention the all-too-recent attacks on 9/11, and even Kap’n K thought that was “pretty fucking harsh.” Good call, Kap’n. Of course, the next album the following year would be called WWIII, so you can’t say Sascha doesn’t know exactly where the line in the sand lies or how to cross it.

The title track “Attak/Reload” starts off with a vengeance, as Sascha softly assures “we’re gonna make you sorry for every word that you say…” What follows is an electro-heavy track with a mid-tempo groove. From the first chorus on, Lucia’s vocals dominate, doubled in the chorus by a robotic monotone. Lyrically, they’re challenging three years’ worth of frustration, singing about the “gravitational pull of delirium,” a phrase that’s aged a bit too well for comfort twenty years later.

“Skurk” is a much more guitar-centric track, with a couple of sections of fancy fretboard footwork. If nothing else, it’s a good moment for Tim Sköld’s guitar work to shine, something it almost always does. It pivots into the sleazy “Dirty” and all of its Rob Zombie-esque glory (and I promise that isn’t an insult). We also get our first self-shoutout of the record, something of a signature of the band even today. If there’s a track that I could point at and be like “this, this is the quintessential Ultra Heavy Beat sound for this record,” the finger is pointed firmly at “Urban Monkey Warfare,” with its monster riffing and Sascha’s talk-singing verses against Lucia’s vocals in the chorus. 

“Save Me” is another song with a guitar for a backbone, as well as a fair amount of nu metal influence. According to Spotify’s metrics, it is the most streamed track on Attak, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s as radio-friendly as I’ve ever heard the band, the song as accessible as one can get. Things turn to dub on “Yohoho,” which is mostly chilled-out grooves with occasional guitar flourishes over Sascha’s whispered vocals. This is one of two songs with Raymond Watts getting a writing credit, and the influence is easily recognizable. “Superhero” is painfully Nineties in its construction, and even giving a wide berth between initial listen and revisit, it’s just not doing it for me. 

“Sturm & Drang,” however, which would go on to be the name of their 2003 tour, comes in like a bat out of Hell and doesn’t let up. An ultra-heavy beatdown of sorts, this one focuses on self-determination and the strength within ourselves, but does so not in a coddling way, but in a “hey dipshit, get up, get out there, and make shit happen” manner. Again, the guitar work of Tim Sköld drives this one onward, both in sheer riffing and his pre-bridge solo. Following is Raymond Watts’ lone lead vocal performance on the record, “Preach/Pervert,” with another shining example of the band’s signature sound, particularly in the sung-through-Watts’-gritted-teeth chorus. The one-two punch of “Sturm & Drang” and “Preach/Pervert” might be enough to sell some on the full record, had one never heard either song before.

“Risen” features a ping-ponging of vocals between Sascha and Sköld, with the latter chugging away on the low B. Forget about a one-two punch, the previous two songs and this make for a potent combination attack, which is a shame considering the final track “Sleep.” It feels like it’s trying to be too much at once, and while I’m glad to see Lucia assuming full vocal duties, that it’s happening on a meddling track like this is a bit upsetting, and serves as a snap back to unfortunate reality.

Those who long for the glory days of KMFDM, the En Esch / Günter Schulz era of the band are long gone. Is Attak on the level of say, Symbols or Nihil in the extensive catalog of Kap’n K and his merry band of industrialists? Maybe not, but all told this is an album that suffered due to controversy, rather than some of its contemporaries which thrived on it. Sadly, the idea of the mass media wanting to tear down something it knows precisely nothing about is something we’re still dealing with today, arguably more so than we were around the time of Attak’s release.

SKYND Serve a Sizzling Mix of Djent, Industrial, and Nu Metal on Newest Offering “Armin Meiwes”

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If there’s one band that proves that genre labels are a little bit antiquated, it’s SKYND. Are they industrial? Sort of. Are they metal? Sort of. Are they – and here’s a term I haven’t seen thrown around in a hot minute – horrorcore? Sure, why not? What can be nailed down about this two-piece Australian act is that their music is centered around true crime, their founding in 2017 coinciding with an uptick in true crime podcasting and a renewed popularity for true crime television series. Their song titles are taken from real-life monsters, such as Katherine Knight, Jim Jones, and Elisa Lam. Their music videos are disturbing yet oddly compelling. And with their latest single, the duo look to cannibalize everything they stand for.

SKYND first played their newest song “Armin Meiwes” earlier this year while on tour in Europe to rave reviews. Sonically speaking, there’s plenty of meat on the bone, with the chorus using elements of djent, while the verses uses the syncopation and hip-hop-like dictation of nu metal, all with an electro-industrial base. The lyrics detail the cutting and the culinary aspects of the crimes, right down to the lines “roast the flesh, medium heat / add garlic, pepper, and salt / meat is too tough to eat / so I’ll feed it to the dog.”

For those uninitiated, Armin Meiwes was a repair technician who, in 2001, found a man who wanted to be eaten, offering himself to be voluntarily cannibalized (title of your next death metal song, anyone?). Long story short, Meiwes was arrested a year later and sentenced to eight and a half years for manslaughter charges, after authorities found body parts which he hadn’t consumed, as well as a videotape of the gruesome crimes which Meiwes, dubbed the Rotenburg Cannibal, kept for his own sexual gratification.

I mean, when a victim shares in dining on his own genitalia with his soon-to-be killer… 

He was re-tried in 2006, after prosecutors argued that the initial defense, that being that he only killed his victim because the victim requested such, was null due to the aforementioned videotape. He was then convicted of murder and therefore sentenced to life imprisonment.

If any of that sounds familiar, yes, this is the same story that Rammstein modeled their 2004 song “Mein teil” after, though they are by no means the first artists to draw inspiration from these horrific crimes.

SKYND is the kind of music I would describe as a connoisseur’s choice: it’s not for everyone, but that isn’t inherently a bad thing. Those who are looking for something different, those brave souls who wish for a bit of danger that may have been missing in their music for some time, may find solace in the songcraft of SKYND, as jarring and shocking as the content within may be.

Check out the music video for “Armin Meiwes” below, though viewer discretion be advised:

Artists Not Named Kate Bush You Should Still Be Talking About

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It has been a moment since I had a chance to sit down and talk about exciting new music that has come out recently. Bands are starting to go back on the road and that means new releases. Instead of doing a Bandcamp Friday this month instead Bandcamp is donating a portion of proceeds to NAACP for Juneteenth. They continue to be the best way to buy music while supporting artists and important causes. We also had our May Darkscene Singles Chart which is on the webpage as well as new podcast interviews. So check those out to support us, like and subscribe.

https://www.youtube.com/c/SoundsAndShadows

silver walks – various positions – I met Daniel McCullough near a dumpster behind Cold Waves in 2019 and heard “Lantern” in 2020. Immediately I knew this album was going to be something special. Dan is one of the most underrated song writers in modern electronica. The people in the know, they understand this. I hope this album is what makes that clear to the scene at large. I think one of the first points to strike me, all but one song are over 5 minutes. In a world of short singles, Various Positions is stretching your dance floor endurance. While making EVERY song a banger. Infectious dance beats that ebb and flow in texture, with razor blade twists. You can really hear the patient precision that went into each song’s construction. There is a thematic post apocalypse spiritual journey that makes me close my eyes and get lost in the story, while stomping in time to infectious hooks. This whole album rides a highspeed tightrope between progressive and ear candy.

▶︎ various positions | silver walks (bandcamp.com)

This album also has a spicy list of A + contributors to bring Dan’s vision to light. Stella Soleil , Coral Scere, Tim Heireth,  Marc Heal,  James Francis, Eva X, and many more mixed lovingly by living legend  John Fryer. Part of the testament to this albums power are the names that agreed to be a part of it. Album art & layout // Joshua Mccallister
silver walks logo by Jim Marcus. Eric Oehler wizard shimmers the mastering. Photo of Dan // Kirsten Miccoli I just saw Dan thanked me in the liner notes, so now I am crying.

Assemblage 23 Remix

Favorite Tracks: This is truly difficult. There is not a throw away track on this album. A wise woman once wrote “The first cut is the deepest” So I will choose where it began for me.

Lantern – This track just hits different. I story woven of a time lost in a desert place of which taps into a fury against injustice. The music here is captivating and lives in my head. This song slaps on the level of Gary Numan doing My Name Is Ruin.

Overall: This is a record I will be visiting all year long until December when it comes time discuss albums of the year.

Cyborg Amok – Cyborg Amok – Self titled release from the New Jersey Father/Son duo which came to my attention courtesy of Michael Nagy. I recently got to interview the band for the Sounds and Shadows podcast. A heavy hitting dystopian future progressive gothic style. I immediately was put in mind of Palais Ideal by the complexity and science fiction concepts. Greg Bullock has a dream whisper voice and a bardic soul. I feel in love with the purity of a father and son bridging generations to find a place of compromise between their influence. Taking that space epic Rush 70’s feel and blending a modern darkscene compression.

▶︎ Cyborg Amok | Cyborg Amok (bandcamp.com)

Favorite Track: Choice Not Taken – This one was just so powerful once I learned the story behind it. The connection between men discussing their trials with candor out front of a powerful spine of percussion.

jluc Courchet aka SPIRYT – BLOOD TWINS – Featuring the phenomenal vocals of Kimberly from Bow Ever Down French electronic shadow Cabaret led by Jluc Ciurchet is weaving soul and atmospheric beauty in the smooth seductive style of 90’s trip hop. Unlike the smooth smokey flow of Portishead, the duo ruffles the waves of dark water with unsettling tension that never allows your heart to rest. I love the scope of instrumentation full of color and percussion. Kimberly has a voice that is remarkable for both it’s quality and the honesty of her delivery. Truly spellbinding she needs to be in the discussion of the top women in the scene.

Favorite Track: Breathing In Breathing Out – Again, this whole album is staggering and an inspired blend of two talents in Jluc and Kimberly. This song just hit with a weight of sorrow and depth I found myself staggered by. This is a song of finding steady ground. To look a trauma and terror in the eye. An inspirational energy to face down the darkness that surrounds.

▶︎ BLOOD TWINS | jluc Courchet aka SPIRYT | jluc courchet (bandcamp.com)

Stoneburner / Chant – Stoneburner​/​Chant King of wolves tour freebie – Speaking of epic and exciting tours which are springing up. Two of the most exciting things happening in industrial music, Steven Archer‘s (Stoneburner) and Bradley Bills (Chant) touring together and unleashing percussion artillery meant to challenge your conceptions and shake your bones. This pre tour pay what you want digital release is the perfect introduction for anyone seeking the exciting new direction that Industrial music has evolved to. It is fierce, vibrant, and epic in scope. Highlighting the talent and different tone of both artists. This is a can’t miss live performance people will speak of in awe years from now

Stoneburner (bandcamp.com)

The Waning Moon – The Waning Moon – Wonderous new collaboration project from Zac Campbell (The Kentucky Vampires) , and Ariel Maniki (The Black Halos). Two powerhouse talents of the modern traditional goth scene forging an alloy of blackened metal which echos with loss and remorse. Unlike their more organic percussion based projects TWM features aa blistering tempo freight train which unshackles Campbell to terrorize the fretboard and Ariel to use a haunting cadence full of ice cold foundation and strength. Only 4 tracks on this EP, but each sets the tone for a future force that fills a need in fans who hunger for traditional goth.

Favorite Track: Talisman – I didn’t go for a deep cut here. This single that accompanies the really sums up the best of what these artists do. An arterial spray of viscera and poetic sorrow which work in harmony, to tell a story of anguish.

The Waning Moon | The Waning Moon (bandcamp.com)

The Amaranth – Gothtimist – As always it feels weird to review yourself. So I won’t. This track off our upcoming album is special to me. It is the ideals of Sounds and Shadows put into sonic form. That the world is cruel, and promises get broken. Yet we can reach out to our friends in the darkest moments and find hope. This song features an amazing array of guest contributors which blows my mind every time I ready it.

Jason Corbett (Actors) , Jean-Marc Lederman (The The; Gene Loves Jezebel; Fad Gadget; The Weathermen; Rohn-Lederman), Dan Milligan (The Joy Thieves; The Burying Kind), Kimberly Kornmeier (Bow Ever Down), Katy May (Katy Needs A Life), Saphira Vee, Brian Graupner (gothsicles; Gasoline Invertebrate) , Ryan Flint (WitchHands), Matt McIntosh (A Cloud of Ravens). As well as cover art by Albie Mason (Scary Black) and mastering by Pete Burns (Kill Shelter)

Gothtimist | The Amaranth (bandcamp.com)

Rammstein Tell A Tale As Only They Can On ‘Zeit’

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Had their 2019 untitled record been their last, I think fans would have been fine writing that line under Rammstein and celebrating the victory lap of one of the biggest international acts of all time. The matchstick-emblazoned seventh disc from the forefathers of Neue Deutsche Härte was a powerful statement, one that needed to be made after the band’s studio work lay dormant for a decade, owing to endless touring and myriad side projects. With the anthemic “Deutschland,” the unsettling “Hallomann” and “Puppe,” and the quintessential-sounding “Ausländer,” the untitled disc was a comeback record to end all.

So when the wait between records is cut to just shy of three years, color me and many others thrilled, as Zeit arrived this spring with a story to tell. Rather than weave the yarns as they’ve done inside of a song, such as “Rosenrot” or “Heirate mich,” this LP uses its title as a central theme. In several ways, the eleven tracks cover a lifespan, dealing with reflection, youth gone wild, and looking back on a life well spent. As the band comes up on nearly thirty years together, the lineup unchanged and the mission even less so, Till Lindemann and Co. aren’t above a song that would make any of those on the antiquated “Filthy Fifteen” blush, but even when things go fully X-rated, there’s a storyline purpose being served.

Having been around for as long as they have been, the band has made their own universe of sorts within their lyrics, and as such have no trouble referencing themselves or their past tracks. For one, “Schwarz,” adapted from one of singer Till Lindemann’s own poetry, features a line taken nearly word for word from the Rosenrot track “Hilf mir”:

In “Schwarz”:

“Denn immer, wenn ich einsam bin, zieht es mich zum Dunkel hin”

(Then whenever I’m alone, I am pulled in by the darkness)

In “Hilf mir”

“Immer wenn ich einsam bin, zieht es mich zum Feuer hin”

(Whenever I am alone, I’m pulled towards the fire)

In either case, the persona in the song is consumed by that which draws them in; that is, in “Hilf mir,” the fire literally consumes the persona, eliciting cries of the title, while in “Schwarz,” the persona finds a sort of uneasy comfort in the darkness.

We also see a couple of songs that feel like spiritual successors, if not direct ones, to previous hits. The sex-positive “OK” (standing for “ohne Kondom”) feels like part two to the controversial “Pussy,” while the far more straight-laced “Meine Tränen” feels like it picked up where the 2001 power ballad “Mutter” left off.

Musically speaking, the record leans a bit more into the theatrical and grand than previous offerings, and given Rammstein’s extensive catalog, that’s an achievement. For one, the horn section on the adipose anthem “Dicke Titten” adds a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor that put the band on the radar all those years ago, while it and its predecessor “Angst” employ a drop B tuning, something that I don’t believe the band has ever really messed with. 

But if the song is called “Dicke Titten,” or “Big Tits” in English, shouldn’t it have been in D? 

… moving on.

Of course, there is no shortage of snarling earworms of riffs, particularly in “Zick Zack,” the aforementioned “Angst,” and the explosive “Giftig.” Guitarists Richard Z. Kruspe and Paul Landers are riff lords for sure, and they live up to their collective reputation in spades here. There are a few surprises on the record, including a hilariously over-Autotuned Till on the penultimate song “Lügen,” which makes some sense, since the persona in the song is a pathological liar, and the argument for “Autotune isn’t an instrument” is still floating out there. A bit late to the draw for a band that was once ahead of its time, but point made and noted.

It should be pointed out that this album came about due to the lack of ability to tour during the pandemic. Think about this: this record, which is a good Rammstein record, thereby making it a great record by any other metric, was a “fuck it, let’s make an album” album. That the band can knock out a mostly killer disc like this for the hell of it is a testament to the lasting power of Rammstein. Even as most of the band members pass half a century in age each, if they’re putting out this level of material, then by all means, boys, throw shit at the wall and see what sticks.

… why do I read that back and fear that I’ve inspired a future music video?

Zeit is available now via Universal Music.