Yeah, I think it's their best. But, like Mungo, I enjoy Animosity, too.

EDIT: Unlike Mungo, I don't completely loathe the snare drum sound.

don't listen to much industrial, but i grew up on godlflesh, never liked
NiN or Ministry...KMFDM was alright...this is Godflesh's heaviest noiz

I would highly recommend LEFT SPINE DOWN. It´s agreat blend of industrial, metal, rock and punk. High energy songs with a great dose of aggression. Btw - some Front Line Assembly guys are involved in this. Check´em out here:
www.myspace.com/leftspinedown

People should give P.H.O.B.O.S a go if they like godflesh and blut aus nord ( ...obviously influenced by Godflesh..didn't Blut aus nord do a cover of Mighty Trust Krusher I seem to remember).
I think P.H.O.B.O.S first release 'Tectonics',was released on Blut aus nord's label, 'Appease me'. Crushing stuff.
http://www.phobosdrone.org/

I just did a review of this album. I loved it as well. A highlight among my industrial metal collection.

I agree with what you said about Whourkr too. I need to get Concrete... I loved the first half of Naat and from what I can tell from myspace Concrete will be even better.

I agree with this entirely. I managed to find Tectonics a while back, and it's pretty aptly named. Huge, monolithic riffs crushing ahead slowly but surely, with some really pissed-off sounding vocals. Inhumanly so.

I don't know electronic music too well, but I love what I do know of Industrial, Ambient and Dark Ambient. Favourites are Thee Maldoror Kollective, Mortiis, Sigillum S(sp?), Dagobah, KMFDM, and The Kovenant's older works.

And could anyone rec stuff for Thee Maldoror Kollective? I haven't been able to find any band as original as them.

I'll probably eventually write a review for n0n, too, but it's just knowing what to write about it. I'd give it somewhere in the 80's myself.

Concrete is definitely better. You may miss the growling vocals, but there is a lot going on and you'll barely notice. It's a killer album.

Front Line Assembly were great. Loved their sounds.
Also early Goflesh, as noted already (really everything from S/T to Pure). I just cannot understand how anyone who likes industrial would not enjoy Streetcleaner.
There is a more electronic related Industrial group from Australia called Black Lung. They were good for creating darker atmospheres. Might be considered industrial-trance by today's standards.
And any industrial thread would be remiss without Einsturzende Neubauten - Kollaps. One of the best organic industrial releases ever.
And a quality band that never had their moment of fame: Sister Machine Gun - The Torture Technique. Neat attempt at fusing industrial and metal.

Herrschaft, Raunchy, Sybreed, Fear Factory and ...And Oceans win this thread.

I found it to be a little slow and repetitive. While it was enjoyable to a degree, the whole thing come off as mediocre due to it dragging on and on.

I prefer more dynamic / experimental industrial music.

I prefer my industrial not electronic but more droning and repetitive.

I agree with this to an extent, but I also think it is good to have some more dynamic passages in between. Aborym, for example, is great, but not in any way droning and repetitive. But on the other hand, Godflesh is awesome to.

Mysticum do a balance between machine-like repetitiveness and more dynamic parts. This also seemed to work out great for them.

I wonder what their second album would have sounded like/will sound like. If it's like the "Black Magic Mushroom" track it certainly would be interesting to hear it some day.

I tried getting into this band but I can't get past the clean vocals. Sometimes they sound good, but more often than not, I cringe slightly.

I don't think dynamic and varied = electronic. You can have plenty of industrial noise that doesn't sound like electronica and it can be expiremental. I generally don't like very repetitive music, I'm a bit ADD when it comes to that.

The thing about repetitive music is that it has to be really captivating if it's going to hold my interest. If it's not hypnotic and captivating it just becomes boring after a little while.

This is why I can't stand most drone, except for Boris, a bit of SunnO))) and Khanate (if you can call them drone).

"The Panacea/Squaremeter" is a great example of electronic music that covers industrial/experimental/drone. Sometimes even in the same song.

Try the following then... took me a while to find some myself until I stumbled upon these true gems in the "true" industrial metal genre:



Dead World (http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=23179)

Best album would have to be "The Machine." Dead World is the US version of Godflesh, only never gained the same success as Godflesh. Their sound is akin to Streetcleaner... all three of their albums have that vibe. Pure monolithic, often harsh vocal-driven and slooooow music with drum machines.

Here's their music video for the song "The Machine": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac0GhbLe6K0



Skin Chamber (www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=107989)

Another Americanized version of Godflesh, but they seem to incorporate not only monolithic style drum machine, distorted guitar driven music, but some of their stuff has some extreme metal influences with blast beats, thrash beats and whatnot. But definitely another band that makes you envision being in the sewer of a factory world... or some cliche like that. Their first album "Wound" is a criminally underrated classic.

Check out this myspace page with music: http://www.myspace.com/skinchamber Swollen Underground pretty much sums up their monolithic sound while Skin Me is their extreme metal influenced stuff.



Scorn (not in the Archives)

If you're familiar with old school Napalm Death and Godflesh, you might know a thing or two about Scorn. It features the two original members of Napalm Death when they were purely grindcore: Nik Bullen (vocals) and Mick Harris (drums). This was their heavily Swans meets Coil influenced project which on the first classic album Vae Solis featured Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick. It's definitley monolithic, a bit electronic with a real warm primitive vibe, and reeks of dubbed drums. And the vocals are either airy & faint, or can be a harsh manipulated growl. Classic stuff. They went on later to be a more chill-style dub group.

Check out this myspace I found with old stuff... two tracks uploaded which are from their first album I spoke of (first two tracks... a side note, The Wizard is one of the coolest Black Sabbath covers I've personally ever heard): http://www.myspace.com/scorndub



Candiru (www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=27622)

Not really the best recommendation for that monolithic style industrial metal, but worth mentioning. This was a two-man project which aimed for more of an experimentation of samples and electronic sounds. Though, their first album at least to my knowledge, Unloved and Weeded Out, is rather primitive sounding and had monolithic guitar riffs. The album is avant-garde and worth a listen. They called their style "mind warping industrial death metal."

Check out their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/candirunloved



Swans (not in the Archives)

If you really love Godflesh, Pitchshifter and those affiliated monolithic style bands, Swans is to blame for that phenomenon. All, or at least most of the bands grabbed influences from Swans because arguably, they were one of the first groups to really play a slow, guitar driven and often doomy sound... at least on their first three releases. They also helped shape industrial music... the old school of it when industrial wasn't about being electronic driven. It's drone-ful, noisy, and reeks of a hatred of mainstream society. I highly suggest getting the albums Cop, Filth, Young God... and even their later apocalyptic folk orientated stuff is pretty good as well. Yeah, they're not metal but forget that for a moment and realize they possess a heaviness that most metal bands can't even reach.

Let it be known that Godflesh was pretty much a Swans-worship band... at least their self titled and Streetcleaner was all predominantly Swans influenced. Check out these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLnpFo8yPoM
Raping A Slave song... sums up their best times during their old school sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWkNlkyT2yE
First album "Filth" uploaded as parts with the full length CD. This is one of their rawest albums which has somewhat of a unpolished style, but you can hear the direction their music will take in future albums. You can definitely hear a lot of self titled EP Godflesh in this album as well.




Hope this stuff helps for those of you looking to get into more Godflesh/Pitchshifter sounding stuff.

If you can't get past the vocals then Sybreed isn't for you. Like most electronic and industrial metal bands, the music is more about the total ambiance and atmosphere the music creates and makes you feel.

It's not the singer that is Emil Nödtveidt, Jon Nödtveidt's brother, it's one of the guitarists.

Haha. You know your stuff. I have this CD from ages ago. Another strange one along these lines from the early 90's was God Is LSD - also had an industrial influence, but I guess a lot of bands did back then. Anyone here remember that one?

Thanks! Never heard of that group you mentioned though.


One more group came to mind about similar Godflesh-worship groups:




Sonic Violence (http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=87904)

They're mistakenly labeled in their entry as "industrial thrash/grind" but anyway...

Definitely one of the best groups to check out from Britain with the Godflesh touch other than old school Pitchshifter. If you really really REALLY like repetitive and minimal music, then it goes no further than old school Sonic Violence with their first album "Jagd" in 1990 which in each song has very few chords, repeats through the song, reverb style drums pounding and lyrics are repeated a lot. The best thing about that album is their "buzzsaw" sounding guitar ala Entombed which makes it sound very gritty and heavy. Definitely worth checking out but fucking hard to find their stuff for download.

***If you're really interested, PM me for a download of the album because I recently found a link to it. And the thing is totally OOP so good luck trying to buy it.

Their later albums became more electronic oriented and lost the metal vibe. Still even that stuff is worth checking for some dark and repetitive goodiness.

Hmmm don't understand it. Mortiis is allowed on the archives but not Rammstein?

Interesting.

Anyways, I have never really gotten into this niche of metal/industrial and was curious if you guys could give a first listen recommendation.

Pretty much, what is the essential band to listen to from this sub-genre?

Fear Factory springs straight to mind, Demanufacture is timeless.
Red Harvest are superb especially their latest work.
Myrkskog - Death Machine has good industrial elements to it
Interlock - They are a London band, do a google search some of there stuff is good.
I'll proberly get flamed for this but whatever - Static X - Machine, quite industrial

Stahlhammer

It depends on what era TMK you're referring to. Their new music would probably only be matched by the last Manes album because of how eccentric it is. If you're talking about New Era Viral Order, maybe try Count Nosferatu Kommando's Ultraviolence über Alles. It is a bit similar. If not, perhaps Void (UK) which bears a similarity to Dødheimsgard (has the former vocalist Kvohst).

Reawakening is up there, but IMO Dissimulate is where it's at.

Hey, thanks for the tips, Funeral_Shadow. I'll go through your post(s) in detail today.

I would also recommend industrial black band TIDFALL from Norway.
Though it is not pure industrial metal, it could adress you.
I have cd Nucleus from the band and i like it a lot.
Very mature music,really.

Thus far, my knowledge in industrial and metal has been a segregation of the two genres.

However, I'm curious--does anyone know of more industrial black metal bands in the vein of 3? I'd like to give this genre a shot and see what I can dig up. Any specific recommendations?

I had a release by MZ.412 (I think it was called "Burning the Temples of god"), that was black industrial which was pretty fucking creepy (and it only had 1 black industrial metal song on it called "Feasting on Kristian Blood" the rest were all black industrial). Actually I wish I hadn't traded it now.

I can name a few bands that are kinda similar to 3: Ezgaroth, Iperyt, and for some reason, The Axis of Perdition reminds me of this band. If you want general recommendations for industrial black metal, though: Blacklodge, Aborym, Void (UK), Thorns, older Dodheimsgard, and Control Human Delete are bands you may wanna check out.

Thank you both for the extremely rapid responses! Looking forward to some interesting listening.

Maybe not what you're looking for but Taken By Wolves of the UK are a real raw and minimal industrial black metal band with an interesting drum machine set. Their beats sound like breakbeats on tin cans with raw black metal riffs and a short fat dude doing black metal screeches.

It actually features the original guitarist of Pitchshifter from their monolithic metal days. Pretty good stuff... I think if you go to their website you can still download their free album with guest appearances by the bass player of Immortal.

EDIT: apparently they have a music video here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2blsVV_Fjmg

While I'm at it, I remember yet another great monolithic style industrial metal band... and a more recent one:

Hordes of Satan (http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=75665)

A duo that blends the days of Godflesh with Cathedral doominess and drone noise. They're a drum machine driven band who play looong tracks and features ex members of the old school Pitchshifter (the guitarist Stuart Toolin). Their first EP actually features a cover of the old school classic Pitchshifter song "Landfill" with a real doom metal touch.

Link to myspace page: www.myspace.com/hordesofsatan

Thanks, I know of Manes quite well and haven't listened to the other two yet but are familliar at least with who they are. Any album in particular to start with for Void? I've always thought DHG are rather boring, though.

Well, they only have one full length and that's the only thing I've heard from them. The song on their myspace, Cypher, is from that album. Maybe have a listen at that?

If you don't like Void, I'd still recommend that CNK album.

Void's Posthuman is (for the most part) a great industrial black metal album. The best songs are Zero Signal Pattern and Posthuman, but I suggest you play the album in its entirety. You'll love the songs more and be able to listen to them on their own after you've had the buildup.

For me Godflesh and Ministry mostly. Saw both of them many a time and they were always both great in concert. I saw Godflesh tripping on shrooms on their PURE tour with Monster Magnet opening right before SUPERJUDGE came out, great show.

I'm not a fan of industrial metal. But all I can say is, A Dark Halo.