Tag Archives: Industrial Rock

Album Recommendation: Welt

Posted on by Standard Reply

 

Despite KMFDM being my favourite group of all time, I can’t say that I exclusively listen to industrial music, or really even all that much outside of KMFDM. While I do have some tracks and albums from other acts such as PIG, Combichrist, Ministry, or Nine Inch Nails, I find that my collection of music isn’t too heavily composed of the genre. Surprisingly enough, it also has very little Skinny Puppy which is basically an industrial legend. Perhaps it’s because most of the Skinny Puppy tracks I listened to were from a long time ago and just didn’t gel with my tastes or I didn’t give them a fair chance based on my first impression.

Later in the early 2000s I was introduced to a track called “Cracker” by ohGr. I found it stuck in my head for quite some time. To me it was electronic industrial music (rather than industrial metal or rock) with a mix of fast glitch pop, granted I didn’t know what glitch pop was at the time. Stuck in my head for days, I had to get the whole album called Welt and give it a spin. Now over 15 years later, I find myself listening to it again and again in my office and I think it’s safe to say this is one of my favourite of all time and deserves to be one of my recommendations. Here’s the kicker, Welt was primarily made by a fellow named Kevin Ogilvie, better known as Nivek Ogre who was a founding member of (you guessed it) Skinny Puppy and has served as the front man for the group since 1982.

While I’m a fan of almost every song on this album, two in particular stand out to my ears. As mentioned, “Cracker” was one of the first I heard on the album even before I had the album. I find this one to be a bit more upbeat than some of the others and perhaps even a little catchy, not unlike a pop song. As mentioned earlier, I instantly loved the glitch sounds used and think it complimented the light bass riff. Not to mention in the music video there’s a faux Eminem doing a little rap, which the younger me found amusing. The second track that caught my attention even before I got my hands on the album, is one called “Pore”. But this track caught my attention for different reasons as it’s a very different song. It almost seems like a light and simple drum loop with various sound effects put together to form riffs that would stand in place of a vocal choruses and lyrics. Throw in some fast talking lyrics (not rapping though) and a great warped bass riff and you got something that seems to be tuned into the essence that is experimental industrial music. My description doesn’t do it justice, but this one seems to be fairly difficult to describe, so just YouTube it and check it out.

Those are my two highlights, but the rest of the album is great too. Most of it will sound closer to “Cracker” though rather than “Pore” so if you find yourself not being a fan of the latter, this album is still worth giving a shot. I’d highly recommend “Suhleap”, “Solow”, “Lusid” and “Water” as those are my next picks after the first two. When I first heard the album “Welt”, it was a fairly different change from the usual industrial music I was used to that leaned towards rock. As a good friend of mine always put it “When I listen to industrial I usually imagine a factory with giant gears and hammers with lots of clanking” (I’m paraphrasing that but you get the idea). Something like the older KMFDM albums is what industrial is to me as well. But “Welt” is much more electronic, doesn’t use guitar, and even feels like it relies on riffs and choruses that seem to be inspire by pop music. If any of that sounds like your cup of tea I highly recommend giving this a listen.

As a side note, “Welt” came out back in 2001 and since then ohGr has released three other albums. I gave the next album, “SunnyPsyOp” a listen though I never found it as good as their first. And since then I haven’t listened to their newer albums either, though I hear good things. Maybe it’s time I get the newer ones and also a bunch of Skippy Puppy albums and give them a fair chance.

Album Recommendation: Nihil

Posted on by Standard Reply

 

Back in the day (I want to say late 90s, but it may have been early 2000s though), later at night there was a music show called Loud that aired on Much Music. It primarily focused on metal, hard rock, and punk which none of them at the time was really my cup of tea, though I’m not sure what my cup of tea was before then. One night they aired a song called A Drug against War by the industrial group KMFDM which are considered to be among the founders of industrial music. The music video alone was enough to catch my attention and the head banging ultra heavy beatmade me drum on my pillow like a madman as I sat up in bed captivated by the sights and sounds. Prior to this I can’t recall ever hearing industrial, let alone something so energetic and heavy. Little did I know watching TV that night opened my eyes to a world of music that would change my musical tastes for the rest of my life.

Last night while I was out walking my dog, I’m fairly certain about 30-40% or so of the songs my iPod randomly picked were KMFDM songs, so it’s fair to say I’d still consider them to be my favourite band of all time. Thus, as only my second album recommendation I could think of no other band to choose from. The problem is picking only one album. They’ve been around since the mid 80s so there’s a lot of material to go through but fortunately I can narrow it down to a few mid 90s albums. That’s not to say their earlier or newer material is not good, it’s just a step down from their best era I think. But even then, I’m stuck with five great albums to choose from. So I approached it in a methodical sense and chose my all-time three favourite tracks, Megalomaniac, Juke Joint Jezebel, and Light. This cut out only two albums though, since all three of these are from different albums. So of those three, I looked at all the other tracks, as well as reflected on which songs in the past I had been most obsessed with in my younger years. Winning by only a hair above the rest, I’ve decided to pick Nihil as my favourite album of KMFDM.

If you follow KMFDM’s timeline, you can see how their sound progressed from primarily electronic, to a mix of metal and electronics, to almost all metal at times. Nihil is roughly from when they were at a perfect mix of the metal and electronic, at least in my opinion. Tracks like Flesh and Search and Destroy highlight the speedy metal on this album, while songs like Juke Joint Jezebel, Beast, and Revolution through more electronic and synth sounds into the mix. As it’s no secret, KMFDM tend to be a politically outspoken group so you’ll get a bit of their opinions on tracks like Terror and Disobedience.

For me there is a great mix of electronic and metal as I mentioned earlier, but this album (much like the other KMFDM albums from the 90s and earlier) has a unique sound to it thanks to some experimental mixing. Even the heavy guitar and steel guitar can almost sound like scratchy sound produced on a synthesizer. In terms of vocals, I’ve always been a fan of the male vocals KMFDM has had over the years and this album has four all together (though I do miss Tim Skold’s raspy voice on this one). But for me the highlight in the vocal department falls to the two ladies singing on Juke Joint Jezebel (Jennifer Ginsberg) and Beast (DoronaAlberti). Their voices singing the catchy choruses really make these two tracks shine for me. As a complete package, Nihil highlights my favourite age of KMFDM.

It’s been almost twenty years since that first night I heard A Drug against War on the TV and I dove into the world of KMFDM. And from it, I further explored other industrial acts and expanded my musical tastes, but without a doubt I can say they’re still my all-time favourite group. My best friends and I even had the opportunity to see them live twice when they rolled through Canada. I even got to see solo shows from EnEsch and PIG a couple of years back which were great, but what made them unforgettable was when they played some 90s KMFDM songs. So if you’re even curious about industrial music, I highly recommend starting with Nihil. Go through their older tunes to get a sense of the more electronic side of KMFM, and move onto the later years to get a sense of some heavy industrial metal. Either way you’ll most likely find album to love with KMFDM.