Back catalogue: Industrial/Noise

Review: Gothenburg trio Amateur Hour is Hugo Randulv, Julia Bjernelind and Dan Johansson, and Gar I Kras is their fourth album. It builds on the expansive Krokta Tankar Och Branda Vanor from back in 2022, and though still experimental and out there, it might also be their most accessible and polished work yet. Dreamy lo-fi pop meets gritty electronics and sound collage throughout as damaged linger above humming basslines and grimy guitars underpin detached vocals. It's a haunting but beautiful soundtrack for outsiders who like music from the fringe but that retains a sense of human warmth and soul.

Review: Broken English Club is the alias of techno veteran Oliver Ho and here he explores his signature industrial wave and post-punk sound with unflinching intensity as he lands on Dekmantel's UFO Series with Songs Of Love And Decay. It is a raw, brooding album dedicated to the late Juan Mendez aka Silent Servant with tracks like 'Crawling' and 'Death Cult' echoing his tribal techno roots. 'England Heretic' meanwhile channels eerie synthwave and Giallo vibes and 'Vessel Of Skin' delves into distortion-laced post-punk that contrasts with the stark futurism of 'Pacific Island Kill.' Ho blends cinematic textures with club energy throughout so makes for a dark, emotionally charged tribute that pushes beyond typical boundaries and is sure to resonate in the club.

Review: Die Sexual exist in the world of Adult, of Gary Numan on a night out at Kit Kat Club, Cabaret hedonism, phallic and yonic electronic beats, rhythms and other noises. Elektro Body Musique, the title a play on electronic body music, or EBM to the cool kids, takes the bull by the horn with savage, hyper-lascivious futurist club music that makes you feel like the voyeur and objectifier in equal measure. 11 tracks owe as much to dystopian cold wave as electroclash and synth pop, basslines warbling and bouncing beneath blunt instrument kick drums and savage key stabs, all topped with the kind of energy-inducing snares we often worry were left in the glory days of these sounds. Immediately dark, alluring, and suggestive, it's a strong case for giving in to temptation.

Review: Rhode Island post-metal avant-garde duo The Body have made a name for themselves due to their caustic maelstrom of harsh, brutalist experimentalism as well as their prolific output and collaborative nature, releasing collab albums with the likes of Full Of Hell, Thou, Uniform, and most recently, Dis Fig. Their latest endeavour sees the pair link up with another duo of musical extremity, Toronto, Canada's recently reformed industrial two-piece Intensive Care. Was I Good Enough? has been on the cards since the artists first began making plans as far back as 2018, trading, warping and ruining mutual sessions with layers of loops, distortion, samples and even dubs, constantly striving to find the ideal haunting balance between both of their sonically hideous, oppressive worlds. For all of our ears' sakes, they just might have succeeded.

Review: Tim Barnes, Marco Fusinato, Aaron Hemphill, Brad Laner, Katsura Mouri, Ralf Wehowsky, and C Spencer Yeh are drafted to collaborate with Sissy Spacek for this new outing from the Los Angeles experimental outfit. Now 26 years young, the group originally emerged from the very anti-Tinsel Town sounding noise and grindcore scene in Southern California, but to say that was just the beginning of their journey would be an understatement. Quite where we've ended up now is anyone's guess, mind. Entrance seems to be a noisy place that has little by way of structure but plenty in terms of ideas. Concerned with at least some of musique concrete's principles, one of the best ways to describe what's here is by asking what's not here. This is the sound of a loud world full of clangs, bangs, whirs, bolts, brittles, emotions and fantastical masterplans. A place that's about the atmosphere and feeling, rather than the tune.

Review: According to the blurb we have for Doomed Utility, Alex Wang is a firm believer that if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around, it still makes a massive noise. "Sound existed before there were human ears to hear it," we're told. Not to mention the fact we have now surrounded ourselves with machines and digital tools that immerse us in tones we don't necessarily derive pleasure from. Industrial, frenetic, electronic, post-club, deconstructed and, in moments, straddling that genius-lunatic border. Doomed Utility makes no apologies for its most intense moments, and panders not to our inherent desire to understand and make sense. These are beats, basslines, distorted walls of tormented chaos and abstract moments don't lend themselves to meaning making. Welcome to the future. It's confusing.