Or: who said that metalheads don’t want to have fun and dance every now and then?
Americans from HEALTH have vastly different ways of approaching electronica. They are more barren, industrial and haunting, cold almost. No wonder they caught the eye (or more likely: ear) of Nine Inch Nails with whom they toured. Then they managed to score their songs on Cyberpunk 2077 and Max Payne 3 soundtracks as well as collaboration with such acts like Lamb Of God, aforementioned Perturbator or NIN among many others featured on both parts of “DISCO4” album. A definite must experience.
If you yearn for nostalgic tunes, Italian Master Boot Record got you covered. They play chiptune/8-bit music that one could easily recall while playing NES games back in the 90s (and a whole lot of retro games modernly). Man behind MBR, Victor Love adds plenty of black or death metal into their compositions and even baroque music if he feels like these would fit. Despite this sounding like a pretty odd mix, music written by Victor is really well done and to be enjoyed by many.
Samael is a cult classic even if fans hated their evolution, from spiritual heirs to Celtic Frost, crafting black metal masterpieces like “Ceremony of Opposites” or “Passage” to more industrial oriented soundscapes. The band led by brothers Vorph and Xy never really took criticism to hearts and created music that corresponded their vision – a very ascetic, cosmic feeling that is pretty uneasy. All that sprinkled with undoubtedly black metal core which is still in bands’ hearts.
Canadian pioneers of EBM music Front Line Assembly helped to set the foundation stones of the genre which was still a bit of an underground phenomenon. The project was brought to life after Bill Leeb left Skinny Puppy in 1986. FLA combines darkness of industrial music with unbelievably catchy beats that will make you feel an unbelievable urge to dance.
During their performance on Brutal Assault FLA will be performing their LPs released with legendary Wax Trax! label, so everything between 1988 and 1991.
KMFDM abbreviation stands for “Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid” which translates to “No Sympathy for the Majority”. Minor spoiler there, but hey, at least they stated their intentions upfront. Led by Käpt’n K for over 4 decades the band presented many of their facets during those years. Main one is rage but there is way more pep in their music in comparison to some of their contemporaries. And plenty of destruction of course, because who doesn’t love that. Especially live.
Mexican Hocico are aggrotech representatives who have been present on the scene since 1993. So what made them last for so long? Their live energy, top tier LPs which compositions plow relentlessly through listeners, their lyrics that discuss human decay. There’s darkness in their music, pure metal fury without distorted guitars. So even if one isn’t into the synths one would definitely be into the feeling of the band.
Technically Rammstein is one of the most prominent representatives of Neue Deutsche Härte (which popped up in the 90s) style but one can easily say there wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for earlier bands like Laibach or our heroes, Die Krupps. They took synths, 80s body music, industrial and goth rock, added some german proverbial precision und voila! You get an EMB band the defined generations that followed after them.
Japanese bands often serve us novelty that nobody would think of in Europe. Violent Magic Orchestra however decided to put black metal, techno, industrial, noise and gabber in a blender and oh, what a tasty smoothie that is. As the label best describes them: “It is like black metal meets Kraftwerk or APHEX TWIN with corpse painting”. We couldn’t agree more if we tried.
