# Industrial Rock



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Anyone know much about this genre? I was recently exposed to some bands that fit this category and I found it quite interesting and intriguing.

Any fans want to chime in?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Maybe the genre isn't what I was expecting it to be.


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## erki (Feb 17, 2020)

Many heavy rock stuff is rather industrial. For instance Rammstein, Black Sabbath has one album at least rather industrial. Depeche Mode(if it is rock music for you) explores industrial themes. Einstürzende Neubauten is something to pay attention to. Sisters of Mercy.....
I need to look at my music collection to recall more. I find it rather interesting when music deals with the human-machine philosophy.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I like it when it is mixed with other styles (like the already mentioned Depeche Mode, or Bowie's Outside).


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Bill Frisell is better known in jazz circles but this album has some heavy, industrial guitar sounds.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

"Industrial Rock" is a pretty vague and undescriptive term. It could refer to any number of styles.

Instead, here's a few of my favorite non-traditional guitar styles.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

my first encounter with the industrial music genre was the band Ministry, though it is more in the metal category. Then of course the Nine Inch Nails and Fear Factory. I would say that the band Tool has also some industrial elements. All of these bands are from the 1990's. I am not familiar with the genre now


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

https://www.ranker.com/list/industrial-rock-bands-and-musicians/reference
a list of industrial bands. I am familiar with about half of them. The one I would really highlight as personal favorite is the band The Prodigy. I remember that in high school I listened to one of their albums on acid and my mind was blown away


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Art Rock said:


> I like it when it is mixed with other styles (like the already mentioned Depeche Mode, or Bowie's Outside).


I liked _Outside_ - as Bowie originally planned it as a trilogy it's a pity he never got around to recording the others. As it was in collaboration with Eno perhaps it needed the latter's input and he wasn't available or something.

Primal Scream also dabbled with industrial on the _XTRMNTR_ and _Evil Heat_ albums. It was OK but I preferred their less angular output prior to that.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

*Industrial Rock*



Captainnumber36 said:


> Anyone know much about this genre?  I was recently exposed to some bands that fit this category and I found it quite interesting and intriguing.
> ...





erki said:


> ... Einstürzende Neubauten is something to pay attention to. ...


I've been a Neubauten fan for years. The band formed in the early '80s. The name means something like "Collapsing New Buildings", where "collapsing" could equally be "falling down" or "being destroyed". I think the music of the band denotes both well.

In fact (and I'll quote here from a Wiki article): "In 1984, Einstürzende Neubauten, with guests including Genesis P-Orridge, Stevo Pearce, Frank Tovey and others, played a show titled The Concerto for Voices and Machinery at the ICA in London. After 20 minutes the venue halted the show when the band began to dig through the venue's stage with drills and jackhammers. 1984 also saw the first release of a best-of and rarities compilation, _Strategies Against Architecture '80-'83_."

I suspect that one of the strategies against architecture is to collapse the building while you're performing.

In any case, I first encountered the band back in the days when I collected punk rock records that featured cover art showing teeth. I purchased the Neubauten album _Halber Mensch_, released in the fall of 1985. It's one of the best "teeth" covers in my collection.









I was actually stunned by the music and immediately sought out more from the band. I have several of their albums currently, but _Halber Mensch_ remains my favorite, likely because it was my first encounter with the band. But it is a stunning record.

Mentioned in that quoted blurb above is one Genesis P-Orridge. He plays for a band called _Throbbing Gristle_, another favorite of mine. This group pre-dates Neubauten by about 5 years at least, but they are heavy with industrial sound. Their live concert in San Francisco in 1981 is recorded and released as _Mission Of Dead Souls_ and remains a classic in the genre. I've had a vinyl copy in my collection since its release, yet each time I play the album the music sounds fresh and startling, and scary.









If you want to sample Industrial, there's a box set titled _Industrial Madness_, containing four CDs of, well ..., industrial madness!









The set is a kind of mixed bag. Thirty-some bands are represented including Front Line Assembly, Die Krupps, Psychic TV, The Electric Hellfire Club, Noise Unit, and Controlled Bleeding. But there is some hard hitting stuff that well defines the genre.

I recently added several "colored vinyl" reissues of Controlled Bleeding records to my collection. The often grotesque covers generally spill the goods on what you're about to hear.















Certainly not music for the faint-of-heart, or -of-ears. But often quite interesting.

You will want to explore this genre. There is so much variety within the ranks, and so much originality. I often wonder how these guys create such noises as they can generate. Sometimes the noise is pure sound assault, as in much of the work of Merzbow (who is inescapable in the genre) and Controlled Bleeding; sometimes it's a wide ranging and nearly uncategorizable approach, as with Nocturnal Emissions, Nurse With Wound, and Throbbing Gristle; sometimes it seems to grow out of jazz rather than from rock, as with Borbetomagus (whose album _Barbed Wire Maggots_, a duo of guitar and sax, is startling in its force); sometimes the music simply ascends from somewhere in Hell. In any case, much to explore. Much to hear.

Were I to introduce someone to this genre in my listening room, I would reach for two albums which have long been a part of my collection, both on vinyl. The _Dry Lungs_ and _Dry Lungs 2_, both of which are "A Compilation of Industrial Music From Around The World", the discs released in the mid 1980's.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Controlled Bleeding -	Scourge Tides	
Etant Donnes -	Le Coeur Sert Le Corps
Neo Zalanda -	A Presto	
Esplendor Geometrico -	Untitled	
Toll -	Brute Freeze	
Vivenza	Unite Concrete Un Bruit	
HNAS / Mieses Gegonge -	Ein Winter Ohne Hautprobleme	
Jarboe -	Walls Are Bleeding	
Merzbow -	Vermin With Carcass	
P16D4 / Swimming Behavior Of The Human Infant -	No! No!	
Maybe Mental -	Premystery	
Le Syndicat -	Full Of ****	
Sleep Chamber -	The Beast 666	
John Duncan -	Hanoi	
P231 / Ankh (2)	- Untitled	
Dog As Master -	Disastrous Consequences	
Problemist - Crisis









Croiners -	Untitled	
Jeff Greinke -	Uprising	
Randy Greif -	The Hole To Heaven	
Monochrome Bleu -	Ballerinas Of Manaus	
Tim Story -	Untitled	
Controlled Bleeding -	Letters To The Life Cycle - Part 3	
Severed Heads -	Clairaudience	
If, Bwana -	Beauty And The Beast	
Un Drame Musical Instantane -	French Resistance	
Asmus Tietchens -	Medienlandschaft 2	
Jarboe -	A Song In The Dark (Excerpt)	
YBO²	- Trash! Crash!	
Hijoh Kaiden -	Deschapelles Coup

These two releases were compiled by Paul Lemos of industrial band Controlled Bleeding. The first disc is harder hitting in terms of noise, but both combined reveal the great variety available in the industrial sphere of music creation. Must haves.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Art Rock said:


> I like it when it is mixed with other styles (like the already mentioned Depeche Mode, or Bowie's Outside).


Just put this on, I'll report back. 

Thanks.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Bowie - Outside is sounding very very cool. Much more along the lines of what I was thinking rather than the heavier side of the genre.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

SONNET CLV said:


> *Industrial Rock*
> 
> I've been a Neubauten fan for years. The band formed in the early '80s. The name means something like "Collapsing New Buildings", where "collapsing" could equally be "falling down" or "being destroyed". I think the music of the band denotes both well.
> 
> ...


Throbbing Gristle was the band I first heard in the genre! Thanks for the reminder.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Certain industry surely went into this cover of the Prodigy song Breathe, which I too found mind-blowing.

The German industrial band Rammstein is another heavy favorite of these guys who now evolved to be more of a quintet I believe... (Sorry, couldn't help the plug. )


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Serge said:


> Certain industry surely went into this cover of the Prodigy song Breathe, which I too found mind-blowing.
> 
> The German industrial band Rammstein is another heavy favorite of these guys who now evolved to be more of a quintet I believe... (Sorry, couldn't help the plug. )


Mussorgsky on acid? Possibly.


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## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Anyone know much about this genre? I was recently exposed to some bands that fit this category and I found it quite interesting and intriguing.
> 
> Any fans want to chime in?


I was a big fan back in the day but it was just called 'Industrial', not 'Industrial Rock'. Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, Laibach, Frontline Assembly, E Ein... Nebauten etc. Naturally I became a technohead.
Depeche Mode aren't industrial but they were on Mute, the same label as a few Industrial acts. An old mate from touring days engineered for them and was A&R. Sisters of Mercy aren't industrial either In their first instar they were, by definition 'Goth'. After SoM split Andrew Eldritch released an LP called 'Gift' under the name of Sisterhood, it was reported as chosen so Wayne Hussey, Gary Marx et al of what is now The Mission couldn't use it. That LP wasn't quite full-on industrial but it had industrial elements. In their next instar, well I don't know what they were.
I lost track of Industrial in the early 90s due to study, insecure work and moving several times, so not buying records.

Ein... Nebauten means Destroy all new buildings.


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