This is the third album from US industrial metal band Return to Earth.
Industrial metal is a rather nebulous and potentially misleading genre tag when applied to Return to Earth. Oblivion is a very diverse and idiosyncratic record, with elements of metal, post-hardcore, industrial, progressive rock, and electronica all present in the music. This Continue reading “Return to Earth – Oblivion (Review)”
This is the third album from French industrial band Crown.
I’m unfamiliar with Crown’s past work, but apparently The End of All Things is a complete departure from their older sound. Fair enough. If you’re new to the band like me, (or even if you’re not), Crown’s new album contains 46 Continue reading “Crown – The End of All Things (Review)”
Aborym are an Italian industrial metal band and this is their eighth album.
The follow up to 2017’s Shifting.negative, Hostile contains 66 minutes of new material that finds the band incorporating elements of industrial, electronica, and metal/rock into a very solid album. Continue reading “Aborym – Hostile (Review)”
This is the second album from Canadian Progressive/Industrial Rock band The Unravelling.
The Unravelling’s music is modern, Progressive Rock with Industrial elements. It’s layered with emotive content and depth of songwriting.
Recalling elements of bands such as Filter, Nine Inch Nails, Sunna, Gravity Kills, Tool and Katatonia, Tear a Hole in the Collective Vision is 44 minutes of music that draws you in with its dark edge and personal themes.
This is a diverse collection of songs with a great variety in mood, pace and dynamics across the 10 tracks. It’s easy to view a band such as this as providing the listener with a musical journey to go on, travelling down the various routes and paths with the band as they explore the moods and atmospheres of their self-created landscape.
Strong vocals provide a focal point for the music and the singer’s slightly atypical voice fits the atypical music to a tee.
This is an impressive album and should definitely be checked out by anyone who enjoys this electronic approach to atmospheric Rock.
Give it a try.
Ghegga are a Scandinavian band and this is their début album.
Ghegga play Electronic/Industrial-influenced Alternative Rock. These influences are embedded into the core of the band’s sound; rather than just add a few keyboards to their main instruments as some bands do, Ghegga incorporate these additional noises, sounds, etc. into everything they do so that the Industrial aspect is an integral part of their approach.
Obvious references would be a band like Nine Inch Nails, although it also brings to mind lesser known acts like Sunna and Gravity Kills. Think of these, add a more Techno/Aphex Twin influence to things; then strip away everything glossy and bright and you’ll have an idea of the Ghegga sound.
There are some good beats on this release and the songs work well as a stylistic whole. This is a bit too Industrial to be overtly commercial and is more like an underground Techno band who have discovered Rock and the beauty of guitars.
The vocals add to the underground Techno feel of the album. Sometimes melodic, sometimes spoken, sometimes threatening, sometimes conspiratorial, sometimes roguish; the vocals are a bit different and wielded like any other instrument to be warped and manipulated artificially by the band.
The tracks are very inorganic; they reek of mechanisation and industrialisation whilst maintaining a techno-darkness undertone that informs the central theme of the tracks. This is the soundtrack to an urban nightmare set to the backdrop of street-level warfare.
This is an interesting release from a band who have chosen to go down the road less travelled for this style of music. It would have been so easy to inject a glossy sheen to this kind of style and have anthemic choruses covering everything like sickly-sweet sugar. Instead we have a grittier vision of the future of music, one where urban decay is rampant and mechanised grime stalks the innocent.
If you’re looking for something a bit unusual then look no further. Delve into the world of Ghegga, just make sure you bring something to protect yourself as this land is not for the unwary.
Interesting and different.
Wonderbox Metal 