Optimum Wound Profile - Lowest Common Dominator (1992)

UK industrial metal/hardcore. Thrash-y punk riffs, gated drums, distorted vocals, sample-heavy industrial atmosphere.

Track listing:

1. Drain

2. Tranqhead

3. Ego Crotch

4. Downmouth

5. You're Weak

6. Blindfold

7. Incision

8. Responsibility

9. Skin

10. Melt

11. Damage

12. Crave

13. Core Melt

I said: I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm just gonna bash your brains in. I'm gonna bash 'em right the fuck in.

You should also listen to:

Counterblast - Balance of Pain (1996)

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction (1997)

Crawl - Earth (1995)

The 90s saw no shortage of bands worshipping at the altar of Godflesh, and I'd be lying if I said Crawl wasn't in that number. But crucially, Crawl injected plenty of death metal energy into the dystopian industrial wasteland, which sets them apart and fucking rules. As found in an albums folder in my Music app labeled "SHUPS", which is short for "pushups", obviously.

Track listing:

1. Skinned

2. Servant

3. Womb

4. I Believe

5. Machines Way

6. Emotional Cage

7. Soundless

8. Gray

9. Release

Malignant cancer of the ecosystem

Also listen to:

Pitch Shifter - Industrial (1991)

Meathook Seed - Embedded (1993)

GOD - The Anatomy of Addiction (1994)

Related:

Final - One (1993)

The Bug - Tapping the Conversation (1998)

The Blood of Heroes - The Waking Nightmare (2012)

GOD was, as far as I know, the project that first put Kevin Martin (The Bug) on the map. The project's sludgy, noise-rock-by-way-of-industrial-metal core sound was certainly indebted to Godflesh, and this similarity was not lost on Justin Broadrick, who produced the first GOD record and played guitar on the rest of them. However, they're no clones, as GOD occupied a generally more expansive, out-there space that also encompassed free jazz, experimental psych, and more.

Track listing:

1. On All Fours

2. Body Horror

3. Tunnel

4. Lazarus

5. Voodoo Head Blows

6. Bloodstream

7. White Pimp Cut Up

8. Driving the Demons Out

9. Gold Teeth

10. Detox

You wake up screaming

Similar listening:

Cable Regime - Kill Lies All (1993)

Painkiller - Execution Ground (1994)

The Axis of Perdition - Physical Illucinations in the Sewer of Xuchilbara... (2005)

Terrifying English industrial black metal. A pitch-black cacophony of razor-sharp guitars, frenetic drumming, and distorted screams, punctuated by extended passages of dark ambient and harsh noise. Apparently this band's whole aesthetic is wrapped up in the Silent Hill video game franchise, which is something I know nothing about because I don't really play video games, but it's probably pretty fucking rad if it inspired music this intense.

Track listing:

1. Interference from the Other Side (Pendulums Prey)

2. Where the World Becomes Flesh

3. Pendulum Prey (Reciprocating Horror)

4. Reopening Wounds of the Transition Hospital

5. Heaving Salvation in the Paradise of Rust

They have come to witness the beginning

The rebirth of paradise that was spoiled by mankind

Also listen to:

(V.E.G.A.) - Cocaine (2002)

Abigor - Fractal Possession (2007)

Struggling Harsh Immortals - 死 (2015)

Anthemic, thrash-y Japanese hardcore colored by programmed drums and serrated industrial noise. The brainchild of Katsunori Nishida, who's been in a bunch of notable Japanese punk/hardcore bands. I'm too lazy to do another "new records that I've been listening to" post, but if I did, the new S.H.I. record would definitely be on it.

Track listing:

1. Theme

2. Green Horse

3. Rejection

4. Empty Inside

5. Lucifer Rising

6. Suicide Solution

7. New World Order

8. Enter the Hell

9. Suicide Solution (Dub Version)

The reaper is you and the reaper is me

Also listen to:

Chaos U.K. - Chaos U.K. (1983)

Rocky & the Sweden - Total Hard Core (1998)

Excessive Force - Conquer Your World (1991)

Related:

KMFDM - Virus (1989)

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife... (1990)

Rock-tinged industrial-dance from Buzz McCoy (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult) and Sascha Konietzko (KMFDM). Truly sounds like a cross between the two projects. Like everything early-KMFDM-related, Conquer Your World sounds gloriously dated and makes me want to smoke cigarettes and drink vodka-Fruitopias on a playground somewhere in suburbia.

Track listing:

1. Conquer Your House II

2. Conquer Your World

3. Blow Your House Down

4. To Death II

5. Ride the Bomb

6. We Like War

7. Worship Me

8. Finger on the Trigger

9. Conquer Your House III

Rip the system

Similar vibes:

Noise Unit - Response Frequency (1990)

Bile - Suckpump (1994)

Cable Regime - Kill Lies All (1993)

Second and easily best album of experimental industrial metal by the great Cable Regime. Programmed drums pound your skull, hypnotic guitars repeat endlessly into nothing, distorted vocals periodically echo, and samples peer through the murk, trying to make sense of it all. Produced by Justin Broadrick.

Track listing:

1. The Amy Fisher Hour

2. King of Beers

3. Righteous Man's End

4. Surgery

5. Novocaine Kul

Paranoia in the funhouse

Similar listening:

Scorn - Vae Solis (1992)

HALO - Subliminal Transmissions (1998)

Abigor - Fractal Possession (2007)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Abigor - Verwüstung / Invoke the Dark Age (1994)

Well, shit. I was gonna share one of my favorite black metal records to celebrate the arrival of my 666th follower, but now that I'm getting around to it, I've already racked up another two (2!) followers. I really can't keep up with my own massive, ever-growing popularity. Now I know how Kurt Cobain felt.

My skyrocketing fame aside, here's this fucking crazy album by the great Abigor, a band responsible for some of the best black metal in existence. Abigor's first record following the return of founding member Thomas Tannenberger, Fractal Possession continues the high-tech, outer space aesthetic that began on the band's previous record, but IMO it's an improvement by every possible measure. An abundance of studio trickery -- the EQ decay in "Injection Satan" is a great example -- and the sheer precision of performance makes it feel almost like industrial metal, but really, this album's completely in its own lane.

Track listing:
1. Warning
2. Project: Shadow
3. Cold Void Choir
4. Lair of Infinite Desperation
5. 3D Blasphemy
6. The Fire Syndrome
7. Injection Satan
8. Liberty Rises a Diagonal Flame
9. Vapourized Tears
10. Heaven Unveiled

Oh, grand machine of desperation
Deliver thy sermon

You'd probably also enjoy:

V.E.G.A. -
Cocaine (2002)

Dark Tribe - In Jeraspunta -
Die Rückkehr der tollwütigen Bestie (2004)

Ministry - Sphinctour (2001)

Related:
Lard - The Last Temptation of Reid (1990)
Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction (1997)

Here's something that no one likes: live albums with a bunch of loud-ass audience noise between every track. It's annoying, it breaks up the flow of the album, it makes the tracks super-awkward to put on playlists, and you know what? It's goddamn indulgent. Like, we get it, lots of people like your band, and they were super-stoked to be at your show.

Ministry, of course, don't play that game. Time elapsed between songs on Sphinctour averages around 5-10 seconds -- a quiet snippet of crowd applause, maybe a "this one's called [blank]," and we're on to the next one. This fact alone puts it in the top 5th percentile of live albums.

Then, of course, there's the music, which is uniformly great. Five songs from Psalm 69, five from Filth Pig (my favorite Ministry record and the album for which they were touring when Sphinctour was recorded) and one from The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste to round it out. True to Filth Pig's harsh, sludge-y tendencies, the album closes with a 1-2-3 punch of droning dirges that accounts for almost half of the album's runtime.

Track listing:
1. Psalm 69 (Live at Elysee Montmarte, Paris)
2. Crumbs (Live at Congresscenter, Stuttgart)
3. Reload (Live at Convention Center, Albuquerque)
4. Filth Pig (Live at the Varsity Arena, Toronto)
5. Just 1 Fix (Live at Aragon #2, Chicago)
6. N.W.O. (Live at the Palladium #1, Los Angeles)
7. Hero (Live at Gaswerk, Hamburg)
8. Thieves (Live at Mercer Arena, Seattle)
9. Scarecrow (Live at Jesolo Beach Festival, Venice)
10. Lava (Live at Dour Festival, Brussels)
11. The Fall (Live at Brixton Academy, London)

Some creepy guy keeps asking
"How the fuck do you sleep at night?"
With a frozen dream and a borrowed hope that died

You should also listen to:

Skrew -
Shadow of Doubt (1996)

Corrections House - Hoax the
System / Grin with a Purpose (2013)

Thy Catafalque - Tűnő idő tárlat (2004)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Thy Catafalque - Sublunary Tragedies (1999)

Incredible third album from this impossibly consistent Hungarian black metal-adjacent solo artist. Plays more like a blackened electro-industrial symphony than an album. The mind reels at the sheer amount of planning that must go into the execution of an album this complex, by oneself.

Track listing:
1. Csillagkohó
2. Neath Waters (Minden Vízbe Mártott Test)
3. Bolygó, Bolyongó
4. Kék ég Karaván
5. Héja-nász az Avaron
6. Zápor
7. Héja-nász az Avaron
8. Varjak Fekszenek

Glasshearted clouds above diving
Veering and falling and rising
Nightfall room, winter shade these days
I close my eyes when I am awake

Similar energy:

The Monolith Deathcult -
Trivmvirate (2008)

Plague Porter -
Don't Let Them Breathe (2016)

Bile - Suckpump (1994)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Bile - TeknoWhore (1996)

Debut album of dense, antisocial, mildly pornographic, and occasionally surprisingly catchy industrial metal from Long Island. A personal favorite of mine for the better part of my life. Wanna see me get fucking AMPED? Play "I Reject" really loud when I'm drunk.

Track listing:
1. Head
2. Burnt
3. Ura Fucking Loser
4. I Reject
5. Feeling Like Shit
6. Get Out
7. Suckpump
8. Get Out (Radio Edit)
9. Ura Fucking Loser (Radio Edit)

I am the living dead
I see in infrared

Similar listening:

KMFDM -
Virus (1989)

Skrew -
Shadow of Doubt (1996)

Reverence - Chamber of Divine Elaboration (2007)

10/10 French industrial black metal. Sonically dense hypno-dirges somewhere in the same lightless realm as Blut Aus Nord in industrial-mode. Seriously can't believe it's been over ten years since this masterpiece came out. I am an old, withered man.

Track listing:
1. Infra-Code of Perdition
2. Institution of the Dirt Archetype
3. Infected Forms of Distance
4. Inner Phaze
5. White Journey Inc
6. Astral Noise Projection
7. Pride of Inanimate Emptiness

Mental pleasure of the weightlessness

If you like this, listen to:

(V.E.G.A.) -
Cocaine (2002)

N.K.V.D. -
Hakmarrja (2014)

KMFDM - Virus (1989)

A 4-song EP of groundbreaking electro-industrial-pop. Martial industrial rhythms, butt-rock guitars, pulsing synths, and a varied, male-and-female vocal approach that touches on punk, R&B, and quasi-hip-hop. I realize that KMFDM has fallen waaaay out of fashion (not sure if they were ever that 'fashionable' in the first place) but I will always back their early stuff, which, outside of kicking ass, includes some of the strongest, most instantly-iconic album art in the history of pop music. On a personal note, this is the first slab of vinyl I ever owned, having been gifted it by a record-nerd homie before I even owned a record player.

Track listing:
1. Virus
2. More & Faster
3. Don't Blow Your Top
4. High & Geil

Bury the future

More along these lines:

Hilt - Call the Ambulance
(Before I Hurt Myself) (1989)

Lard -
The Last Temptation of Reid (1990)

Skrew - Shadow of Doubt (1996)

US industrial metal. Heavy, razor-sharp guitars, strung-out vocals, and dark, enveloping atmospheres that land them somewhere between Filth Pig and Astro Creep: 2000, but without the commercial appeal.

Track listing:
1. She Said
2. Black Eye
3. Knotted Twigg
4. Head
5. Swallow
6. Sam I Am
7. Going Down
8. Generator
9. Dark Ride
10. Crawl

She put the gun to his head
He pulled the trigger

You'd also like:

Meathook Seed -
Embedded (1993)

Bile -
Teknowhore (1996)

Andrew W.K. - Party Til You Puke (2000)

So the other day Stereogum posted an article about the AWK conspiracy theories that've been hanging around since early in his career, which I'm not even gonna try to summarize here. At first, I was annoyed because a) it's been beat into the ground already and b) Andrew WK makes beautiful, perfect music that doesn't need to get muddied up by rumors based on what, if AWK were to be believed, amounts to a business partnership gone sour. However, the article isn't just a remarkably comprehensive analysis of said controversies, but actually functions as a complete re-evaluation of his work that aligns him with visionaries and reality-benders like Andy Kaufman and David Lynch.

Beyond all of that, though, it was a relief to see that I'm not the only fucking person in the world who noticed how fucking weird and dark a lot of his lyrics are. Take "I Love NYC" off of I Get Wet, for instance: while the meaning of lyrics such as "We are your mother-father/We are your fighter friend/You can't stop what you can't end" is anyone's guess, it is clear that "I Love NYC" is not, in fact, about loving NYC.

"Party 'Til You Puke" is another great example: what exactly do the lyrics "We dent/We dope/We choke/We gun/We kill/We stab/We rob/We steal" have to do with partying, exactly? Ponder this as you listen to the Party Til You Puke EP, which finds a young AWK presenting a raw, blown-out, but more-or-less fully-formed version of his id-driven insanity. It's way meatier than the below track listing might seem to suggest. And please, read the above-linked article, it blew my goddamn mind.

Track listing:
1. Party Til You Puke
2. Party Til You Puke (Remix)
3. Party Til You Puke (Shout Out Mix)
4. Dance Party (Anti Never Ending Music Mix)
5. I Want to Kill (Built It Up Mix)
6. Old Man [Couch cover]

We're not gonna die, and you can never kill us
We're not gonna die, and you can never hurt us

HALO - Subliminal Transmissions (1998)

Utterly bleak Australian industrial sludge. Draining, repetitive dissonance that's right out of the noise rock playbook, and the thick, tar-black atmosphere of early Godflesh. If you're looking for music to sap you of your will to live, this'll do the trick.

Track listing:
1. Transit
2. Absence of Light
3. Worm
4. Whore
5. Like Cancer
6. KKNXRXZ
7. Spiral Close
8. Transmission
9. Null
10. XZK$X
11. Guilt Shift

Cleanse/Purge/Purify

Further down the spiral:

Skin Chamber -
Wound (1991) + Trial (1993)

P.H.O.B.O.S. -
Atonal Hypermnesia (2012)

The Blood of Heroes - The Waking Nightmare (2012)

Related:
Final - One (1993)
Painkiller - Execution Ground (1994)
Arcana - The Last Wave (1995)
Arcana - Arc of the Testimony (1997)

A heady, intense fusion of drum n bass, industrial metal, dub, and a lot more, featuring Justin Broadrick and the dancehall-style vocals of Dr. Israel. Totally bananas, and definitely not for everyone.

Track listing:
1. Piration
2. Death Wish
3. Everything Undone
4. Hecatomb
5. The Last Forest
6. War
7. Towers Arise Underground
8. Dogtown
9. Bronze and Brass
10. Only the Desert Endures
11. I Love You But I Chose Darkness

No allegiance to any nation

Igorrr -
Hallelujah (2012)

Metallic Taste of Blood -
Metallic Taste of Blood (2012)

N.K.V.D. - Hakmarrja (2014)

Suffocatingly heavy, martial-industrial-infused black metal. Hakmarrja is utterly crushing, yet hypnotic in effect, with huge chords ringing out over mid-paced, programmed drums, as monstrous vocals and samples echo throughout the abyss. The sound of a world burning to ashes.

For those of you who are wondering: No, N.K.V.D. are not a Nazi band. They're a concept band dealing exclusively with totalitarian and otherwise oppressive systems throughout history, but they're not endorsing any of them, or painting them in anything other than a terrifyingly negative light.

Track listing:
1. Exordium
2. Hakmarrja
3. Wolfschanze
4. Za Krajla
5. The Invisible Empire
6. Travail-Famille-Patrie
7. Batallion Vostok
8. U.C.K.
9. Red Silence
10. Excipit

Under the blood of centuries

You might also like:

Borgne -
III (2007)

P.H.O.B.O.S. -
Atonal Hypermnesia (2012)

Zaraza - No Paradise to Lose (2003)

Ecuadorian experimental industrial doom. Synthetic guitars, queasy synths, pipe organ, pitch-shifted vocals, and programmed drums. No Paradise to Lose is a masterpiece of supremely warped, inhuman music -- it's like a sentient computer started a solo doom metal project.

Track listing:
1. Possessed by Skepticism
2. Nova Akropola [Laibach cover]
3. Mark of the Infidel
4. Infliction
5. Planetary Re-Install
6. Znikad Donikad
7. Przeklinaj Śmierć
8. Heart.ov.the.goat

Life is death postponed

You should also listen to:

Skin Chamber -
Wound (1991) + Trial (1993)

O.L.D. - The Musical Dimensions
of Sleastak (1993) + Formula (1995)

Bile - TeknoWhore (1996)

Filthy, sleazy, noise-ridden industrial metal. Got into this band when I was like 12 via the surprisingly solid Mortal Kombat soundtrack, which also introduced me to KMFDM and Napalm Death, and needless to say, when I finally got my hands on it, TeknoWhore blew my innocent little mind. It was heavier than "Creature of the Wheel", more disturbingly, violently sexual than "Big Man with a Gun", more futuristic than "Juke Joint Jezebel", and more twisted than "Misery Machine". Nothing against any of those songs or artists, but for a hormone-addled, budding misanthrope stuck in suburban Maryland, these were the true tests of artistic merit, and Bile quickly became my go-to band for impressing my fellow angsty suburbanites.

Track listing:
1. Intro
2. TeknoWhore
3. Weather Control
4. No One I Call My Friend
5. Habitual Sphere
6. Compound Pressure
7. Interstate Hate Song
8. Green Day
9. No I Don't No
10. Suckers
11. Lowest Form
12. You Can't Love This (Pt. 1)
13. You Can't Love This (Pt. 2)
14. You Can't Love This (Pt. 3)
15. You Can't Love This (Pt. 4)
16. Solitude Is Bliss

I'll do anything to make you piss all over me

You should also stuff these into your earholes:

Pitch Shifter -
Industrial (1991)

Lard -
Pure Chewing Satisfaction (1997)