Merging Scandinavian Pop and Glam Metal (H.I.M.) with the Rammstein trademarked Neue Deutsche Härte, using both cutting guitar riffs and trance-like synth layers, the Finish Black Light Discipline are back with 10 brand new songs on their second album.
Founded in 2005 on the idea to make captivating, synth-based grooves by mixing Metal and electro genres, BLD are pushing the envelope of music. They released their full length debut album, “Empire”, in 2008 where featured as guest artists Dj Proteus and MC Raaka P. Toni Valha – vocals, Janne Kankkunen – synths, Joonas Pulkkinen– guitar, Veikka Jokela – drums, and Jani Rissanen – bass are striking again. Read more Black Light Discipline – Against Each Other (2012)
industrial metal
Ministry – Relapse (2012)
Few words worth more then a couple of fancy, but meaningless phrases, so, Al Jourgensen – age fiftyfuckingthree years – is back with the twelfth studio album of Ministry and they are simply and straightly louder, faster and angrier then ever. And Mr. Jourgensen is not alone, he’s got serious back up from Mike Scaccia and Casey Orr of Rigor Mortis, Tommy Victor of Prong and Tony Campos of Static X. This time eventually they aren’t pushing the musical boundaries further, they doesn’t break any new ground, but definitively they delivered again the most murderous sonic sledgehammer and you can bang your head to it, get wasted or waste someone, or occupy the streets and markets of your city. Politically correct? The ulcers are gone and Bush is gone, the shit stays the same, the price of the gas goes upper everyday, but let’s stick for now to the music and to this 10 tracks and just bang on this for a while! Read more Ministry – Relapse (2012)
Morbid Angel – Illud Divinum Insanus – The Remixes (2012)
Some conservative death metal fans definitively hated “Illud Divinum Insanus”, the last year released Morbid Angel album because Mr. Vincent and his band mates delivered also some industrial and modern metal sounds and fans considered this an act of betray. Those fans definitively should stay away from this double remix album set to be released on 28th February. Although, “Illud Divinum Insanus” made it to my favorite 150 albums of 2011, so I was quite excited about this remix project.
On this compilation featuring 39 artists and they pushing the butchery even further, twisting Morbid Angel into the more noisier, electronic, but quite sick area of music. From contorted industrial remixes to wobbling dubstep out-takes, “Illud Divinum Insanus – The Remixes” it’s definitively the ultimate trip to hell and back. Read more Morbid Angel – Illud Divinum Insanus – The Remixes (2012)
Semargl – Satanic Pop Metal (2012)
Rammstein fans will be definitively delighted, although the story is quite different, this band from Kiev, Ukraine, formed in 1997, grew up from black and death metal roots.
“Satanic Pop Metal” it’s a merging of genres, black’n’roll, death and industrial metal are melted into one and bring back to life, reminds me also of Debauchery’s last album “Germany’s Next Death Metal“, only that Semargl use more intensely, Rammstein likely the synthesizers. Pumping and pounding, heavy, but melodious and catchy, still cutting and intense, Semargl delivered a bloody brutal and modern metal album. Can downlload some of their track for free – including “Tak, Kurwa (Yes Bitch)” – from their MySpace , Facebook and their official web page. Read more Semargl – Satanic Pop Metal (2012)
Celldweller – Soundtrack For The Voices In My Head Vol 2, Chapter 02 (2012)
The hybrid fusion of aggressive electronic music with orchestral and rock influences now get to the next level of destruction by bringing in the big guns of dubstep, wobbling bass and frequency oscillations, deadly drops and explosive noises combined with orchestral and rock flows makes this new instrumental collection murderous. “ShutEmDown” is one of the most killer tracks I heard lately and it was used in the Ghost Rider 2 movie trailer. The Latin-spiced electro “Senorita Bonita” it’s also a favorite.
“The Wings of Icarus” was used in the Real Steel movie trailer, while “Earth Scraper” was used in the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations “Combat Trailer”.
Scott Albert, known as Klayton, multi-instrumentalist and the sole member of Celldweller was a former frontman and songwriter for the bands Circle of Dust, Argyle Park and Angeldust gained a devoted cult following in the mid 90s through his industrial metal band Circle of Dust. Read more Celldweller – Soundtrack For The Voices In My Head Vol 2, Chapter 02 (2012)
Eisbrecher – Die Holle Muss Warten (2012)
The fifth studio album by the German Neue Deutsche Härte band takes down on a quite gothic/romantic side of the industrial metal, and from my point of view more than one ballad on a this kind of album it’s already too much. And – unfortunately – “Die Hölle muss warten” have several ballads, slow and pretty boring bitter-sweet songs, all of them filled with cliches, rather then with feeling. The faster, darker, pulsing songs of Eisbrecher sounds like a collision of The Sisters of Mercy with Rammstein and some of them are quite anthematics as the leading single: “Verrückt”.
No more “This is Deutsch”, but still, Eisbrecher rocks hard as they always should with tracks like “Herz aus Eis” where they managed to merged the slow and gothic mood with dark and heavy contortions. Love that track! And few others as “Abgrund”. Read more Eisbrecher – Die Holle Muss Warten (2012)
Mindless Faith – Just Defy (2012)
Although, as I just find out, this is their fifth album, “Just Defy” is the first album by Mindless Faith I ever listening to. I crashed into Mindless Faith at Indaba Music through the Jane’s Addiction remix competition , competition won by them which actually makes me hate them – although my remix is even darker – 😀 – but, I’m not gonna deny my subjectivity on this issue! 😆
Anyway, it seems they have a solid and substantial fan-base and experience in remixing “business”, delivering several tracks, including remixes for Nine Inch Nails and Front Line Assembly, and they delivering solid, balanced remixes incorporating their dark, deep and pulsing marks on these works. They remixed two Nine Inch Nails songs: “Only” and “The Hand That Feeds” and won a number of radio remix contests, met Trent Reznor as part of one of the prize, who said their remix was “better than some I’ve paid for”.
Mindless Faith find their path of merging industrial rock and EBM, their dark and contorted music honor predecessors such as Ministry, Pigface, KMFDM, Front242, Funker Vogt, Skinny Puppy, Combichrist, Nitzer Ebb, Schnitt Acht – just to name few.
“Just Defy” it’s another trip into the dark side and Mindless Faith is an exelent combo delivering soundtracks for this strange times of global turmoil. Read more Mindless Faith – Just Defy (2012)
Blue Stahli – Blue Stahli (2011)
Although I have a whole lot of new releases waiting there to be listen and eventually to get a review at the bottom line, still, there are many treasures left undiscovered from the previous year. Blue Stahli are definitively one of them and released on March 2, 2011, this self-titled album it’s the first not only instrumental album by the artist, but the second under the Blue Stahli moniker.
We’ve got 10 tracks, 43 minutes of ravishing fury and sensual emotions. Blue Stahli managed to merged anthematic rock hooks with smoothly cinematic sensitivity and epic electronic sound. Aggressive riffing, melodic hooks, bloody screams and contorted electronic layers are working in perfect harmony here to create the most efficient construction of gothic punk with industrial metal outfit. Probably most of the people will think of Nine Inch Nails and well, there are some obvious similarities, but still, this is something quite different. And highly addictive. Read more Blue Stahli – Blue Stahli (2011)
Mr. Pan[k]sament – Mashed, Scratched, Trashed (2011)
Free download, but this isn’t a regular album, rather a collection of remixes, but featuring two original songs and the cover of Nine Inch Nails’s “Hurt”.
Regarding my remixes, as a fellow producer noticed, I do some creative work, actually I re-write, re-perform most of the instruments, not only “remixing” the songs, so this might be an exciting listening mainly for those who know the originals, but not exclusively for them. I twisted off, smashed and mashed, scratched and trashed songs by Nine Inch Nails, Ghostland Observatory, Paper Diamond, Archnemesis, Lloyd Banks, Peter Gabriel, Jane’s Addiction, She Wants Revenge, Jessie and the Toy Boys, WormZ and Family Force 5.
Download, have fun, Happy Holidays Everybody! Read more Mr. Pan[k]sament – Mashed, Scratched, Trashed (2011)
Neurotech – 2011, free downloads
I was damn sure I did write about “Antagonist”, the band’s debut album back in March when it was released, but hell no, I could not dig out that review, but with all the troubles and errors I had faced this year with this site and my hosting, I’m not surprised of anything anymore. Anyway, “Antagonist” and their brand new EP entitled “Blue Screen Planet” are available at their official site for free download, respectively “name your price” as digital release, while you can still buy the “Antagonist” special CD+T-Shirt pack for only 15€.
Although “name your price” means even zero, I still believe artist deserves and needs all of our support, mostly artists from the underground who bring to the surface alternatives for the usual mainstream bulls*its.
Neurotech from Ljubljana, Slovenia, formed back in 2007 by Wulf delivering a pounding mixture of metal riffing and electronic layers merging powerful metal with spacy, cinematic trance/ambiental electro music. It’s a quite electrifying and refreshing experiment, harmonies, strong choruses and deep textures, grinding guitars are make perfect match here melting into one. Gothic romanticism and heavy brutality collide in their music resulting something beautiful and gloomy, mysterious and heavy. And just as I said, they efforts needs to be rewarded. Read more Neurotech – 2011, free downloads
