As much as it pains me, I decided to censor this album cover because I realized it might not be a good idea to have the original image featured on my social media ( view the uncensored version here ) I thought it might be interesting to review another foreign band this week. You might remember that I reviewed the Russian band, Молчат Дома, last week (be sure to check out that post if you haven't yet). This week, I am reviewing an album by a German band, Einstürzende Neubauten.  Einstürzende Neubauten (translates to "Collapsing New Builds") is a industrial band from West Berlin, formed in 1980. Industrial was really big in Germany, and Einstürzende Neubauten was one of the bands at the front of the scene, even playing concerts with Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle fame at ICA London ( check out my review of Throbbing Gristle - The Second Annual Report here ). Unlike Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten doesn't stick to pure experimentation and noise in their...

You may be wondering, 'Is the band Молчат Дома, who created the album, Этажи, a foreign band?' and 'Are they going to be singing some non-english language, perhaps Russian?' The answer to both of these questions is yes. I can't remember how I found this album originally, but one day it came up in my YouTube recommended, I instantly recognized the cover, and decided to give it a listen. It was really good. It reminded of me listening to Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures for the first time. Note: In this review, I italicize Russian words written in the Roman alphabet, put "quotation marks" around English translations, and do nothing to Russian words written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Молчат Дома or Molchat Doma (roughly translates to "The Houses are Silent") is a 'cold wave' band. This is a genre of music that I don't know too much about, but from what I understand the genre is close to goth, except more detached and minimalistic. Si...

From just looking at the cover, this album might not seem like much. I mean, just look at it! It looks like some kind of lazy bootleg, or the cover to some official document. However, despite its looks, this is one of the most important albums ever made. This is because this is the debut album of the first ever industrial band, Throbbing Gristle. Without this album or band, more famous industrial bands and groups such as Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Marilyn Manson, and Death Grips would never of been created! Old photo in front of TG's lightning bolt logo When you first look at the track list of this album, the first thing you might notice is that there are a lot of repeated songs. In fact, out of the 9 tracks on the album, there are 3 tracks called Slug Bait and 4 called Maggot Death. This is because almost all of these repeated tracks are live recordings from different shows. Despite this, all of the repeated tracks sound ...

  What would you say if I told you that I know this electronica band called Fartbarf with band members that wear monkey masks and songs that feature vocals so distorted that it sounds like a robot is singing? You'd probably say that sounds terrible; it sounds like it's going to be another terrible joke band that relies on some dumb shtick to get sales. That's where you'd be wrong. Not only is Fartbarf a real band that takes their music seriously, their music, for the most part, is really good! According to an interview with LA Weekly , the band chose their weird name, and their personas as "space-neanderthals" not only to attract a larger audience, but also to show that they "could take themselves seriously and try to make a name for themselves" despite it. Their music its self takes inspiration from metal, synth punk, and EDM. One of the band members described it as a combination of Hot Chip, Devo, and Slayer. I'm not exactly sure if I would com...

        In my recent review of Cattle Decapitation - The Anthropocene Extinction, I mentioned how I was surprised how much I liked that band, despite previously not being a fan of the genre. Well here I am again, and this time I'm even more surprised. A while ago, looking to expand my musical horizons, I talked to some of my friends about wanting to try to find some hip-hop that I liked, and knowing my music taste, one of them recommended that I checked out Death Grips. When I first listened to their most popular album, The Money Store, I was skeptical, but their unique blend of hip-hop, industrial, and noise spoke to me. Over the next few weeks I started listening to their other releases. Now, call me Anthony Fantano because I'm a fan of Death Grips. Now, enough about me, lets talk about the band.         Death Grips is an experimental industrial hip hop band from California, consisting of Zach Hill, Andy ...

There are certain genres of music that were never meant to ever be associated with each other, and, without a doubt, black metal and house are two of those. Despite this, The Soft Pink Truth decided to sell their souls to Satan and birth the unholy creation that is Why Do the Heathen Rage? In this album, The Soft Pink Truth (TSPT) covers several black metal classics (and some others) as experimental blackened house songs, and somehow, kind of makes it work (by the way, I added links to the originals where it says "[band] cover" so you can listen to both versions and compare them).         I keep saying "house," but I'm sure most people reading this blog don't know what that is, so here you go. House is a style of 80s techno club music, produced by DJs, which features drum machines, 4/4 beats, and off beat hi-hats; somewhat similar to disco. Despite this, house is much more electronic and minimalist than disco, and often has a mechanical, repetitive ...