It’s been a funny time in music and entertainment recently, with hysteria around political pronouncements at major events by bands that we’d expect to do so (and thus providing a distraction from the horrors of Gaza in particular), as well as the anti-Trans bullshit that is still being peddled, and a general feeling that it is becoming more difficult to be able to speak out.
/amodelofcontrol.com now has a Patreon page, at this stage purely as a potential way of helping to cover the running costs of the site. There is absolutely no compulsion to do so: if you feel you can chuck a small amount to the site each month, that would be appreciated.
/Subject /Tracks of the Month
/Playlists 
/Spotify / 
/YouTube
/Related /590/Tracks/May-25 /Tuesday Ten/Index
/Details /Tracks this week/15 /Tracks on Spotify Playlist/13 /Duration/46:59
I’m not really sure what else I can add to the discourse, other than that I fully support LGBTIQ+ rights, and that I am very much on the side of the Palestinians rather than a country that apparently wants to bomb them out of existence – much as I am on the side of Ukrainians facing an existential threat from an illegal invasion by Russia. That does not make me antisemitic, I am criticising the actions of a country and its Government, not anyone else. As well as that, I’m proudly of immigrant origins, which will probably piss off politicians of some stripes. This site is run independently, is not beholden to advertising, and I express my own views, whether that is about politics or songs.
Anyway, such as it is, here are the best tracks of the past month, written among a busy month and finding time to consider songs when I can.
A quick explanation for new readers (hi there!): my Tuesday Ten series has been running since March 2007, and each month features at least ten new songs you should hear – and in between those monthly posts, I feature songs on a variety of subjects, with some of the songs featured coming from suggestion threads on Facebook.
Feel free to get involved with these – the more the merrier, and the breadth of suggestions that I get continues to astound me. Otherwise, as usual, if you’ve got something you want me to hear, something I should be writing about, or even a gig I should be attending, e-mail me or drop me a line on Facebook (details below).
/Track of the Month
/Seeming
/Grindshow
We appear, at last, to be beginning the cycle for Seeming album number four, and a bit of unexpected promotion for Seeming happened at my friend’s Tim and Holly’s civil partnership ceremony last week, where a cover of I Love You, Citizen was memorably played. Alex Reed’s project also has a fair bit to live up to this time around, certainly from the view of this site: two songs have topped my /Countdown /Tracks annual lists (The Burial in 2014, and End Studies in 2020), while second album SOL topped /Countdown /Albums for 2017 and that decade – overall Seeming releases or tracks have made the top ten of my annual/decade lists nine times.
We’re in safe hands with Alex Reed, though. Grindshow is a fascinating changeup from the oft-introspective darkness of The Birdwatcher’s Guide to Atrocity, instead a dramatic, more-is-more mix that sees rhumba drums provide an energetic base for a song apparently celebrating flexibility in outlook and action (and tellingly, the blurb says it “plays a queer soundtrack for dancing, kissing, or industrial sabotage”). I can’t help feeling that there is change in the air, and Seeming are about to provide a soundtrack to it.
/16Volt
/White Noise
/More of Less
The return of 16Volt – after a lengthy hiatus – began in 2023, with their great fun set at Cold Waves XI, where a thumping new song If You Like It was debuted. It’s taken a couple of years, but this coming month More of Less is finally released, and going on that first new song and recent single White Noise, there’s a distinct feeling that Eric Powell has returned to the breakbeat-and-bass-heavy sound of career highlight FullBlackHabit, and I for one am totally fine with that.
White Noise is perhaps a bit more restrained, but the clatter of beats gives way to a stomping breakdown of a chorus and a quite wonderful throwback to a point where Machine Rock was a thing. It’s great to have 16Volt back.
/Ganser
/Black Sand
/Animal Hospital
The first new material in three years or so from Ganser – since the EP Nothing You Do Matters, and the first new material with new vocalist Sophie Sputnik joining Alicia Gaines and Brian Cundiff. Despite the changes within the band, there’s still the uncomfortable tension that has always characterised the best Ganser songs, but on Black Sand there’s a heavier, jagged edge to the guitars, and a confrontational feel to the delivery of the song that matches the blurb that accompanied release. The band say that this is an album about observation, and the revelations that come with paying closer attention. Not for the first time, the band appear unimpressed with the results of their observations, and it only adds to the terse nature on display here.
/Sleek Teeth
/Same
An LA duo whose exceptional singles last year saw them in my /Countdown /2024 /Tracks rundown for Endless, they appear to be continuing that hot streak with their latest single. What was interesting about their sound from the off is their obvious interest in EBM (those bass synths tell all), but also their roots in the more emotional side of synthpop, and Same has elements of both and a rich depth to the mix. The vocals are smooth and melodic, and there is a punch to the sound still that oh-so-many of their peers entirely lack.
/BLACKGOLD
/Dance Like That
As the masked, anonymous band say in their latest banger, they are “Bringing that nu-metal sound back“, not to mention unexpectedly riffing on Crazy Town, and initially, this song sounds like it might be a more hip-hop based track, as they deliver their vocals over what feels like a laid-back, LA beat. But then they ask “Can Ya Dance“, take a breath, and the entire fucking band blasts through the speakers as one for a mighty Nu-Metal chorus that feels like an instant festival ripper. They might be doing a great deal new, but they are a whole fucking world of fun.
/BLACK MAGNET
/Better Than Love
/Megamantra
Fast-rising industrial metallers BLACK MAGNET – now signed to Greg Puciato’s label Federal Prisoner, and also now a full band rather than just James Hammontree in the studio – continue their striking rise and evolution with their third album, out later this month. Previous releases have been, to put it mildly, bludgeoning beasts, and it seems that while none of the power has been lost, some of the new material has a little more nuance. Well, that is perhaps relative, as by the time you get to the chorus of Better Than Love, the band may well have scraped most of your skull from your head. A slower pace, multi-tracked vocals and guitars that feel like they are aimed at you like sharp knives: this fucking rules. The best industrial metal band around right now.
/Just Mustard
/POLLYANNA
The last album from Just Mustard, 2022’s Heart Under was an album full of dread and foreboding, and never allowing the twin-guitar-and-dozens-of-FX-pedals attack to swallow the sound whole – even if at points the band tried. There’s been no announcement of a new album yet, but a new single dropped with little fanfare last week.
Interestingly POLLYANNA pushes Katie Ball’s striking vocals to the forefront, while those guitars squall behind her, trading screaming feedback and ugly power chords as an urgent drumbeat pulls everything on. It’s a lighter touch, perhaps, than what has come before, but it is no less ominous and dark. I’m fascinated to see what else is to come.
/Cervello Elettronico
/Bill Gates
/Theory
David Christian has been releasing music under the Cervello Elettronico name (and a few others, too) for over twenty years now, and this new release is the first full-length release under this name, as far as I can tell, since before lockdown. His material has always been harder-edged, and techno-influenced industrial is the order of the day here, but there’s something about it that makes it stand out that bit more from the legions of other such-styled artists. Bill Gates arrives under the weight of an enormous, steel-toed rhythm, with ominous metallic screeches and vocal samples that remain just out of reach. An impressive return.
/Ratio Strain
/Exorcism
/Exorcism
Vanessa E has been a familiar name in the noisier end of industrial in recent years, having made a number of live appearances as part of other acts (particularly as live drummer in W.A.S.T.E.) and also by themselves – and this, remarkably, comes from the debut album under the Ratio Strain moniker. Perhaps I was expecting a slightly different sound, but Exorcism comes as a pleasant surprise to these ears: groovy, fuzzy breakbeats provide a backbone to a powerful, bass-heavy track that remains instrumental but some of the sonic elements at the fringes have the feel of heavily distorted and treated human snarls. A release with teeth, and an album I’m now very much looking forward to. (As it stands, the Bandcamp embed features a different track, but Exorcism itself is on YouTube with a cool video).
/The Peoples Republic of Europe
/Bring The Despair
/Make Europe Great Again
Even by the prolific standards of many noisy industrial artists, tPRoE stand out – Make Europe Great Again is their thirty-first album, and while I’ve heard a good number of their releases, I don’t think I ever have the time to keep up with their relentless schedule. As the album title suggests, this is an album with a bleak outlook, and as the group say themselves, “There is no hope and humanity is too stupid to change the course“. Which, sadly, is probably true. Thus, Bring The Despair feels like an apt track to feature here: it kicks like a fucking mule and has a nasty ear-piercing edge.
/cut.rate.box
/Reel Life
Out of nowhere, c.r.b. return after twenty years. G. Wygonik apparently ceased the project after Hurricane Katrina caused immense upheaval to their life, and this is a welcome, if unexpected, return. The project now appears to be Wygonik solo (Clint Sand’s striking vocal work on previous releases is no more – he moved onto the project Synnack in subsequent years), and his vocals are perhaps a bit more restrained on this new track. But it still seethes with rage at a world apparently ruled by social media, disinformation and boredom, themes that cut.rate.boxseemed to be considering the first time around, some way ahead of other artists.
/Rotersand
/Private Firmament (I Fell For You)
/Don’t Become The Thing You Hated
Another band similarly disappointed in the world they see – and another that have been documenting such thoughts on record for some time – are German industrial powerhouses Rotersand, whose last album How Do You Feel Today? was released the week lockdown kicked in, and thus perhaps got lost in the chaos of the time somewhat. In the meantime, they’ve released a steady stream of standalone singles, and a new album, then, is an unexpected move.
Some of those singles are on this album, it turns out, but the latest is Private Firmament (I Fell For You), a rip-roaring track that builds and builds more than once before exploding into a dancefloor-friendly boom that I can’t get enough of.
/Nuovo Testamento
/Picture Perfect
/Trouble EP
Nuovo Testamento have turned into something of a sensation in recent years, at least partially thanks to non-stop touring for a few years, but also thanks to their impressive releases, which have pretty much had no weak spots. Somehow, amid all that touring, they’ve found time to record tracks for a new EP, of which first single Picture Perfect dropped a few weeks back. The new single is very much a case of “don’t fuck with a winning formula” – it’s a short, no-time-wasted track, with Chelsea Crowley’s tales of being lost in lust and love the lyrical theme as usual, but what is interesting is a shift into piano-led house influences that only supercharge the track even further.
/ULTRA SUNN
/Wrong Floor
/The Beast In You
It’s barely sixteen months since the impressive album US, and Belgian duo ULTRA SUNN already have a new album coming, even if it isn’t released until October. The first two singles from it suggest that like Nuovo Testamento, they’ve no interest in deviating from a sound that has served them so well until now. Wrong Floor has a sneer to Sam Huge’s vocals that gives it the appearance of an epic put-down, while Gaelle Souflet’s intricate electronics give it a big, skyscraping sound.
/Party Cannon
/Thirst Trap
Everyone’s favourite, IQ-lowering, fun-loving goregrind nutcases released a new single recently, and the press release for it was worth the release of the single alone. Yes, it’s a goregrind song about being horny as fuck – rather than killing or violence – begins with a gentle piano sound, but then turns into exactly what you’d expect. There are riffs for days, the kind of tempo that you really begin to feel for the drummer, and you naturally can’t make out any of the lyrics. But who cares? Party Cannon are the best at what they do at the moment, and as I’ve noted before, they are enormous fun live. Even my wife has some of their merch (the infamous pink booty shorts).