Tag: Industrial

Review of Electronic Substance Abuse : BURIAL 10

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ESA – are an English dark industrial / electroclash project by Jamie Blacker, which started in 2002. This new album is called Burial 10 and features vocals from Jo Hysetria (Massenhysteria), Caitlin Stokes (Corlyx), and Lecture.

https://esangp.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ElectronicSubstanceAbuse/

So right out the door this album is coming at you like a speeding train through a tunnel. It’s driving pistons and screeching metal furiously charging down your throat with reckless abandon. It would be easy to feel like that was chaotic because that is the emotional response it summons. This is a focused and precise weight of speed and power with intent and form. I feel like i am describing a high end automobile not a record, but this is the feeling of Burial 10.

ESA has been around a good while and gone through different styles. I feel like this album ran a bit of that spectrum on it’s own. It twists, writhes, and thrashes like a cornered animal. Unpredictable and fierce. Great use of guest vocalist like Jo Hystaria and Caitlyn to add more surprise twists to this story. The pulsating beats are a relentless onslaught which attack from so many directions. Gentle synth tones carefully placed expose the belly of the beast and add style and craft to this fierce creature.

Upcoming tour schedule

Favorite Tracks :

You are Safe Here (Feat: Caitlyn Corlyx) – I, of course, had to choose this one because it features the angelic, sensual voice of the amazing Caitlyn. This has the intense EDM drive but is tempered by her striking laser-fire voice. This is a club hit made to shake floors supporting giant speakers.

Caitlyn Corlyx

Burial 10 – The title track is a driving march. I really like the bizarre off-kilter chanting sample vocals. Part of the fun of ESA is they never seem to take the foot off the pedal. Even when breaking down with the spoken word vocal sections. Lots of high energy, never-let-up Prodigy feelings.

Blessed With Bruises – A nice change up here, bringing the tempo down and the trip hop feeling up while keeping the same steady crashing waves of sound. Instead of a high-speed chase, this is a slow, smooth roll, sliding around corners, channeling Massive Attack’s effortless cool.

Jamie Blacker

Overall this is a fury of intensity sure to make your club walls shake. Find the biggest speakers you can and crank this until the neighbors cry.

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Review of Dogtablet: Feathers and Skin

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Dogtablet is: Martin King (Test Dept), Roberto Soave , Jared Louche (Chemlab), Jenny Bellestar, Sapphira Vee and A-Rex {Yes, pause a moment and just take all of that in}

https://dogtablet.bandcamp.com/album/feathers-skin

Look I might not be in the best head space to try and write a review right now. It’s been a tough week. This album has been my constant companion holding me up when it felt like things were a bit too much. So I feel like it is important to share the power of what these songs have meant. My trauma has been animal related (worry for a pet). This record is so full of the intimate and animal nature. It’s energy conjures totem aspects of primal creatures which I have needed to focus on. The credentials of the artists collaborating here are too many to count. It’s real power lies in how different it sounds from it’s individual parts. Every piece is a perfect blend of the talents without ego or pretense lifting each other on dark flapping wings of intimate raw energy.

The drums are perfectly crafted and have an organic feel for such electronic elements. They remain subtle to allow the poetry and power of the vocals shine through. The motion of the synths and triplet world beat toms feel like stalking, slithering, gliding beasts. It gives a unique texture to every song. Jared Louche in particular has a distinctive vocal style and really steps outside their comfort zone with the intimacy of this delivery. These tracks are so full of blood, claw, scale, fur, and tooth.

Hawtness

Lets talk favorite tracks:

Shadowlands – The album opens strong. Beautiful distant piano coming to you from across the distance. I will probably lose goth street cred for this but one of my all time guilty pleasure albums is Rolling Stones “Emotional Rescue” This song holds that same stripped down lay bare spiritual power. The winding blues riff guitar leads are smoky and flowing. Jared’s vocals are so exposed and powerful.

Collapsing Lives – I love the contrast here. Almost like two songs overlapping. A sinister smoke rising from the sand. While mono synth effects and trip hop drums slash back and forth to create a swaying beauty. Sapphira Vee lends a delicate breathy beauty like the wind holding a bird gliding.

Things Said and Done (Snake Lies) – This track really encapsulates that feeling of an animal in music form. I feel it slither with those drum beats falling just behind where your mind wants to hear the tempo. This song is never where you expect it to be. It slithers and strikes. Jared Louche chants like a vision driven prophet whispering secrets of a forgotten time.

Martin King

Overall I found this to be a remarkable and powerful offering from several industry legends combining their abilities to create something primal and resonant in a world barely scratching the surface. Get it now, listen to it often, dream of wolves and ravens.

Review of Klack 2400bps 8-N-1

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Members: Matt Fanale (Caustic) and Eric Oehler (Null Device)

Hometown: Madison WI

Label: Self Release

https://www.facebook.com/pg/klackmusik/photos/?ref=page_internal

https://klack.bandcamp.com/album/2400bps-8-n-1

Industrial super band Klack have done it again. This time shining a light on 80s BBS modem culture with their new release 2400bps 8-N-1. A further step forward from previously reviewed Introducing The 1984 Renault LeCar (2019). A bit cleaner, a bit meaner Klack is putting the ass shaking chanting cadence back into industrial music. This EP again brings that 80’s old school sample heavy drive. I think what struck me right away is how accessible it is. Sometimes Industrial can get lost in metal roots and grinding crunch. Klack has focused on energetic dance beats and crystal clear emphasis on the back and forth vocals of Matt’s guttural ferocity and Eric’s beautiful melody lines. It’s inspiring and affirming making you focus on the energy of light dancing around you while the world crashes down around you.

Currently shooting to the top of the band camp charts as a self release Klack is firing out hits to a world hungry for nostalgic industrial played through a modern thinking persons lens. The lyrics are clever and thought provoking. Sometimes art really reflects the personal relationship of it’s artists and Matt/Eric have a friendship that bleeds through into their music. The elements flow together seamlessly into a powerful construction which stands out in the landscape. Their live stage show is crowd charging. If you get the chance to witness it I highly recommend.

Top tracks include:

Discipline – The heavy sample ridden opener has a ferocious chant that brings Industrial intensity into a Jane Fonda 80s workout video. The synth pads strike with precision to ramp up the energy.

The Games We Play – I love the War Games reference. The vocals are softer and have a gentle whispered melodic aspect. The song has a political and philosophic edge. I think this one really captured me the most and left me playing it over and over. I true bomb track.

Check the Spreadsheet – Beep Boop Bop dance until you drop. A mid tempo dance hall driver. I love the distorted slash synths with the early Microsoft sampled commercials. It’s clever, it’s dancy, it puts you on the floor from cell A1 – ZZ and makes you want to create a pivot table.

There is a reason this album got off to such a strong start. It’s fun, it’s intelligent, and it’s relevant in it’s focus on the past in the modern era. Klack yourself today !

Hot new releases in October

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It has admittedly been tough to get behind the keyboard in October. I have had a lot of focus on my band and lots of shows I needed to see. However I wanted to take a moment to call out a few important releases this month.

First and foremost is a new single from goth legend Caroline Blind of Sunshine Blind. Sunshine Blind was so important to many of us that fell in love with goth industrial music in the 90s. It really opened my mind to how something could be both delicate and beautiful at the same time as ferocious and intense. The album, ” Liquid,” was a CD I played until the scratches looked like grooves on a record. I just had the pleasure of seeing her open for Stoneburner in Detroit, and it was like being transported back in time. This first single in far too long is a cover of my favorite Swans song, “Godamn the Sun“. It is moving in it’s nihilistic humor and gloom. I feel like this version takes everything wonderful about the original and adds a level of stark contrast from the gorgeous soul of her voice. The ringing acoustic guitar and timed delivery has an almost Leonard Cohen feel in it’s poetry. This is a must hear for lovers of dark music.

https://carolineblind.bandcamp.com/releases?fbclid=IwAR1rsGgTNAF389aEwZHX6GsxmGgHndN7w_zEe8v1iOSn3XnFWU3zxqk586c

The lovely lads from Texas Twin Tribes have done it again. Their first single from a sophomore album, Ceremony’s, shows another level in the electric progression of one of post punk musics fastest rising stars. There is a smooth synthesis to the flow and texture of these singles that is surpassing the already brilliant Shadows. Each song is a Ceremony that brings you inside it’s ritual and core. The personal connection created from these songs makes it a contender for album of the year.

Our dear friends in S Y Z Y G Y X have unleashed a Halloween single called, “Samhain”. They always have a spooky, atmospheric edge, spurned on by Luna’s truly unique vocals. For this cemetery dance jam, they turned the danger up to 11. Feast on the nightmares in sonic explosive form.

Ghost of Bela Lugosi, the man too intensely punk rock to ever hold between the lines, unleashed this searing napalm of a single. I am always surprised how much every song he releases is so different and so good. This one is an unapologetic throat punch of melodic fury. It’s hard to sit still just to write about it.

https://ghostoflugosi.bandcamp.com/album/colombian-neck-tie?fbclid=IwAR1qjVVV1w7Q3MnaUwArvsjK7Lkb5aRrwaITUVC6y5Z_YoIO9WByeAicirw

Carrion N.O released a new single, “Through the Eyes of Flys.” Another Halloween sinister noise assault in the vein of the Goblins. Full of atmospheric terror and slow building tension. I don’t want to run into this song in a dark alley.

https://officialcarrion.bandcamp.com/track/through-the-eyes-of-flies?fbclid=IwAR1586Qxl4ezaItvoa0jMgUWkWwaMD8rpeY2U9X7BpWuFOsDOCBF18zaFAY

And Screw it, a band named Amaranth I am pretty fond of, made a new single, and I think it is peachy keen 😉

https://theamaranth.bandcamp.com/track/my-turn-again?fbclid=IwAR2pJtCXNtaUCdzW5SgY3GHFRDjiTLi4qfySKvuZ5gjmRW0k7-JmrkIYZWc

Review of Joy Thieves “Cities In Dust”

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Artist: Joy Thieves

Album: Cities in Dust

Label: Armalyte

Hometown: Chicago IL

Members: Holy Shit too many to count 🙂 Please see Facebook link below Chris Connelly , Dave Suycott , Louis Svitek , Ania Tarnowska , Eric Liljehorn , Mike Reidy , Matthew Clark , James Scott , Dan Milligan , Michael Allen , John Fryer , Lana Guerra , Gordon Young , Howie Beno , Mike Czarnik

https://www.facebook.com/pg/TheJoyThieves/about/?ref=page_int

https://armalyte.bandcamp.com/album/the-joy-thieves-cities-in-dust

The Joy Thieves are a massive collaboration with over thirty contributors gathered together by Dan Milligan. When i first heard this EP my initial description was “This is what it would sound like if Clutch beat the shit out of Stabbing Westward with a baseball bat” I still stand by that. This record has a ton of big name Industrial contributors and the Pigface, Ministry, Chicago Industrial sound is prevalent. To me what really made this record shine was the hard rock aspects charging forward which included aspects of industrial. Not the other way around. Dan is a drummer by trade and this percussion fills every inch of space and creates such electric movement. These tracks have melody and catchy hooks, but it’s the teeth that sets them apart. It bites hard, visceral, and does not let you go.

This EP includes remixes and a cover of “Siouxsie and the Banshees” sung by the amazing Ania Tarowska of I Ya Toyah. Her vocals are a fierce guttural homage to the queen of goth punk and pulls off something I had lost hope for. Making a song that was so incredible it had been overplayed into the ground, sound fresh and crackling with energy once again. The musicianship on the guitars make every song sizzle with true foot stomping ferocity of rabid wolves attacking in unison. Every song finds a way to build in succession and find a new voice.

Lets talk about favorite tracks. It is an EP so I will limit to two.

Honeycomb and Silk – This song is a freaking master class in percussion and drive. Thick slashing guitars are chased like wild horses by whip crack snare snaps. The vocals are a driving chant with range and intensity. I just want to play this song and break shit.

Cities in Dust – I hate to use a cover for best tracks but this one is a show stopper. There was so much potential to go wrong covering this song. Cities in Dust has been played at every goth night since the Vandals sacked Rome. Although I love it I almost dread hearing it at this point. Then Dan and company found a way to turn it up to 11. Ania attacks it with a ferocity I think Siouxsie herself would be proud of. Plus the humming guitar lead really cuts through the mix to give a blistering hard rock feel. They made me give a shit about Cities in Dust again.

Overall this EP was a blistering fresh romp through the wild west of hard rock on an mechanical horse. The lineup is so chocked full of talent it couldn’t help but obliterate every target it set sights on. Sometimes you just need to flay with reckless abandon and swing your arms to intense perfect precision drum beats. This is the album to do that to. Turn it on, max your volume, and scream until your neighbors know just who they are fucking with.