Back catalogue: Industrial/Noise

Review: This reissued album from Justin K. Broadrick follows the sold-out 2022 CD release from Fourth Dimension Records. Since 1983, Broadrick has worked under the Final moniker, evolving from power electronics to a more expansive yet still intense sound over the years. This record features nine tracks all named and numbered after the title and they delve into murky textures, crepuscular guitars, harsh noise and dissonant bursts. The relentless, unforgiving sound captures anger and despair and prove Broadrick's ability to transform early power electronics into contemporary, boundary-pushing forms with deeper emotional resonance.

Review: Industrial legends Front Line Assembly return with bold reimagining of their sound on new release Mechviruses. It features ten tracks that remix, rework and reinvent with new instrumentation and vocals merged with the band's signature dark electronic edge. Traversing genres from darkwave to metal-industrial to synthpop, this one pulses with complex textures and relentless beats and has fine contributions from Artoffact labelmates ULTRA SUNN, Ayria, Bootblacks and others, plus collaborators like MVTANT and s:cage. It's a work that bridges past and future and is more than just a remix record, but instead serves as a reinvention, proving Front Line Assembly's relentless drive to push industrial music into new dimensions.

Review: Legends of EBM, Canadian electro-industrialists Front Line Assembly should need no introductions, given their work stretches back to the mid-1980s. Nevertheless, they occupy a relatively obscure space - made for dance floors, but twisted, dark cornered, writhing, distorted dance floors where many fear to tread. With that in mind there will be some newcomers, and The Initial Command is a great starting point because it's the starting point of the band's back catalogue.

Originally released in 1987, this is the first album from an impressive 17-LP-strong body of work. And it's also the most definitive of their sonic style, setting a benchmark for all that would follow. Fiercely original, not least for 'it's time', from the glittering synths and harsh metallic percussion of the unarguably cinematic 'Casualties' and the abrasive white noise on 'Ausgang Zum Himmel', to the punchy breaks and dramatic strings of 'No Control', re-releasing Command is an essential act of unearthing.

Review: While Ben Frost's work has long been marked out by deft-touch dark ambient, experimental instincts and clandestine aural textures, he's always thrown in surprise excursions and drawn on musical inspirations that other like-minded producers would fear to embrace. This latter characteristic comes to the fore on Scope Neglect, his first solo set for six years. Remarkably, it utilises the moodiness, weight and ten-ton guitar licks of metal - played by Car Bombs guitarist Greg Kubacki and bass-slinger Liam Andrews of My Disco fame - as a starting point. Frost naturally puts these through the sonic wringer, combining them with his own skittish, IDM-influenced beats, dark ambient soundscapes and razor-sharp electronics. The results are unusual, impressive and emphatically enjoyable, sitting somewhere between timeless electronica, Nine Inch Nails and experimental metal.