Elektroniczny Mordercy [Weekly Mixtape 187]

Bong-Ra | Author & Punisher
Tayne | Killer Couture | The Dark | 601
Operation Suffocate | Demonologists | LATEX
Nox Pulso | Igorrr | Walking Bombs
Burndy | Harms Way | Black Magnet

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Schwerindustrie [Weekly Mixtape 6•24•2022]

Godflesh • Above & Below • Foetus • Einstürzende Neubauten
Kollaps • MØTIVATIØN • N8NOFACE • KYOTY • ScorpKlub • Gridfailure
Luminous Vault • Depressor • Omnibael • MASTER BOOT RECORD

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214: Author & Punisher

Dreams of Consciousness Podcast Episode 214 features an interview with Tristan Shone of Author & Punisher.

[cover photo by Becky DiGiglio]

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Listen on Google Podcasts

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Clean Streets[Weeekly Mixtape 2.18.2022]

Haiku Funeral • Ministry • Lard • Melted Bodies • THE LION'S DAUGHTER • Sigillum S & Macelleria Mobile di Mezzanotte • OLD • Foetus • Human Impact • Godflesh



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Mixtape 96 - Misery Loves Co.

Here is the 96th installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring an interview with Patrik Wirén of Misery Loves Co.

Listen on Apple Podcasts (IOS)

Listen on Stitcher Radio (Android/IOS)

Bandcamp Picks - Author and Punisher, Bliss Signal, Moe/Mauhaug, A Storm of Light

One man project Author & Punisher has returned with dark and clanking album number eight. Beastland is darkwave as only machinist-by-trade Tristan Shone could make it, building each song on mechanical percussions that replicates the demoralizing, dehumanizing rhythms of a factory assembly line. This is the most literal interpretation of industrial music I've heard this year. [$10]



Altar of Plagues mainman James Kelly continues to push the boundaries of metal with his new project Bliss Signal. On this eponymous debut, AoP's atmospheric black metal is deconstructed and given a digital makeover, layering droning guitars over electronic beats in a way that recalls the cold fury of Red Harvest. It may not be completely black, but it is bleak through and through. [$7.99 CAD]

DoC friends MoE have a new release out, collaborating with Norwegian noise artist Marhaug. Over the course of its four droning noise tracks, Capsaicin ratchets up the tensions with nary a recognizable riff or drum beat to anchor it.  By distilling "noise rock" to its component parts and discarding the "rock", MoE and Marhaug have achieved something infinitely more unsettling. [€8]

There's no mistaking what fuels A Storm of Light these days. Anthroscene is a screed against the current state of American politics, taking aim at the Trump administration's various SNAFUs with an apocalyptic sound that owes at least as much to Ministry and Killing Joke as it does mainman Josh Graham's previous band Neurosis. A confluence of 90's alt-industrial and turn-of-the-millenium post-metal. [$9.99]

Bandcamp Picks - Godflesh, Thaw, Svartidauði, Gnaw

Stripped of the grime of their earliest albums, Godflesh still has the power to unsettle. In case you forgot about Justin Broadrick's extended dub phase, Post Self is here to remind you of the fact, following up where releases like Nihil and the temporarily shelved Messiah left off - with G.C. Green's bass anchoring Broadrick's ambient guitar to the most machine-like beats the duo have employed in decades. Robotic in the best possible way. [$8]



Thaw have embraced noise since their earliest recordings. Though the band has deep roots in Poland's vibrant death and black metal scenes, Grains is ostensibly a doom drone album, finding common ground with the likes of Black Boned Angel and Earth in both its monolithic assault and ambient interludes. A marriage of knuckle dragging hesherdom and chin-stroking experimentation. [$7.90]



Iceland's Svartidauði are themselves no strangers to avant garde weirdness. Their latest two song EP is a rabbit hole of nightmarish psychedelic black metal, with "Exultation" consisting of a single guitar melody repeated over shifting drum patterns. Two songs lasting 14 minutes - to ask for more would be to invite madness. [€2]

With a lineage that goes back to the genre-hopping grind of OLD and the proto-industrial of Ike Yard, Gnaw is a band that can be relied on to bring the noise. Cutting Pieces is album number three for the NY band, broadening their caustic sludge with experimental electronic music and Alan Dubin's tormented diatribes. As reassuring as a choir of dental drills. [$6.99]

The Long Hundred 006/100: Head of David - Dustbowl

...in which a post punk diversion signals a turning point for the future J.K. Flesh.

The Long Hundred 005/100: Ministry - Filth Pig

...in which a band with an appetite for self-destruction delivered one of the darkest, most self-loathing albums of the Nineties.

The Long Hundred 004/100: OLD - Formula

...in which one of Earache's least popular albums might also be one of their best.

Catching up with EYESWITHOUTAFACE

Toronto's eyeswithoutaface were one of the first bands I interviewed for this blog - but don't hold that against them. Their eclectic style fuses music from opposite ends of the spectrum, and is never less than gut-wrenchingly heavy. With a new split EP out and a new album in the works, it felt like a good time to hit them up again and see what they've been up to all this while. I fired off some questions, which vocalist Max Deneau and guitarist Mike Szarejko were kind enough to answer. 

Bandcamp Picks: Godflesh, Misery Index, Agalloch, Emptiness

The first Godflesh release in over a decade, Decline and Fall could easily be out-takes from their classic period: Menacing opener "Ringer" and the title track are straight out of the Merciless/Pure playbook, while the hip hop-inflected "Dogbite" and bass-driven "Playing With Fire" could have been from Songs of Love and Hate. Throughout it all, B.C. Greene treats his bass like the bitch has been holding out on him and Justin Broadrick alternates between a forlorn moan and a bark that we haven't heard from him in years. This new Godflesh is old Godflesh through and through, up to and including the two dub remixes included at the end. As an appetizer for the upcoming full-length, this can do no wrong... but consider me ready for the main course. [$7]



In bad news for motorists throughout my neighbourhood, the mighty Misery Index are back to fuel my nightly runs with The Killing Gods. This is the sound of an elite deathgrind squad firing on all cylinders; lest we forget, half their line-up spent years in Dying Fetus before the first Misery Index EP was issued a over decade ago. Swaggering and bloodthirsty, this isn't just one of the best albums of the band's career, but a shoo-in for end of year lists everywhere. My jogging shoes should be filled with blood by then. [$9.99]


After the massive amount of NPR love in 2011 threatened to associate them more with tote bags than patch jackets, it would appear Agalloch were aiming to hit the reset button with their latest album, The Serpent & The Sphere. Toning down the more Pitchfork-friendly elements and settling into mid-paced blackened doom, the songs herein all have a certain classic (if safe) sound. If hearing the band return to the style of The Mantle comes as a relief to long time fans, there will be a few (myself included) who miss the spacey brilliance of their recent Spirit. [$8.99]



Like the bands who splintered off of the Norwegian scene in the late 90's (Arcturus, Dodheimsgard, and Beyond Dawn among them), Belgians Emptiness are using black metal as a jumping off point to pursue their own strange digressions. With a line up that includes members of Enthroned (who've been standard bearers for take-no-prisoners black metal since the dawn of the second wave), Nothing But The Whole abandons the solid if unremarkable blackened death of Emptiness' earlier albums for a unique take on the genre that includes proggy weirdness and bleak industrial atmospheres. [$7]

Industrial Metal Top 10

In my interview with eyeswithoutaface, I made it a point of saying "Mixing industrial/electronic influences into extreme metal isn't new, but the results are usually underwhelming." Usually, but not always: Here are ten albums where the combination worked, and then some.

eyeswithoutaface Interview

Out of luck, I discovered Toronto's eyeswithoutaface at a point in 2012 when I was becoming increasingly jaded with the metal scene; during a flood of unoriginal and mostly forgettable death and thrash revivalists, EWAF's dischordant and unique brand of heavy industrial was a welcome relief. I fired off some questions over e-mail, which the band (vocalist Max Deneau, guitarist Mike Szarejko, and drummer Tuka Shahidi) took turns answering.

Bandcamp Picks: eyeswithoutaface, Latitudes, Inheritage, Within The Fall

Toronto's eyeswithoutaface walk closely in the footsteps of the dearly departed Red Harvest; black, death, doom, and power electronics are all blended together into a noisy hate smoothie that'll give NIN fans nightmares. Their new album Warguts is the heaviest thing to get tagged "industrial" that I've heard in a long time. All their releases (including their amazing debut Monotoneoteny) are available either as free or Pay What You Want downloads.



I never checked Latitudes out before, probably because on paper their shoegazey post-metal sounds derivative and uninteresting. But Individuation is surprisingly awesome. Trippy, heavy, and blackened at the edges, it's like Deftones and Pelican hiking through the woods with Deafheaven as their guide. Not free, but downloadable for a respectable $7.



"Lithuanian Death Metal" is a thing, and on Inheritage's debut EP Morbid Grace of Death, it's a very good thing. I'm immediately reminded of bands that blasted out of neighbouring Poland in the late 90's (Decapitated, Yattering). The riffs are sharp, the drums are programmed (but not obviously so), and the vocals are guttural. Four songs (and an extremely discomfiting  Happiness sample) are available as a free download, and well worth your time.



I have a feeling I'd get along with the dudes in Within the Fall; we seem to share the opinion that the only thing wrong with Brave Murder Day is that there's only one of it. Anyone lamenting Katatonia's shamble towards more commercial pastures is better off getting Through the Shadows instead. This four track EP is available as a PWYW download.


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