Another hot month, another ten tracks – including the 7,000th entry in this series.

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/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.

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There’s some great music kicking around at the moment, too: it just feels like you need to look for it a bit. Keep the recommendations coming…

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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 above).

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/Track of the Month

/Russian Circles
/Empath
/Nine

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It hasn’t been as long as I thought since the last Russian Circles album, but four years is still a while. It was suggested at the time that Gnosis was cut down from a double album, but going on this mighty new single, I’d be surprised if the album is those culled tracks. Instead, Empath perhaps sees a return to the band’s heavier, earlier style. Brian Cook’s malevolent bassline underpins the thunderous drumming of Dave Turncrantz, and Mike Sullivan’s choppy guitar work is the texture the track needs. It is furious, monstrously heavy and everything that I love about this band.

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/Norillag
/Sacrifice (Corpus)
/Kombinat

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Originally a Vancouver-based artist, I understand they may now have moved to Montreal, but either way, this is an artist with a deep knowledge and respect for the origins of industrial music, and they appear to have decided to continue this noisy, powerful lineage. It doesn’t take long to realise that they are inspired by the works of Neubauten and Test Dept. in particular – their description on their Bandcamp page is simply “Metallurgical music”. There are some synths/electronics and samples within the sonic maelstrom, but the focus is mainly on percussion: the credits record one drummer and no less than three on “scrap metal percussion”, and on the lengthy (twelve minute) opener to their recent mini-album, it takes about four minutes before the punishing rhythm that is the core of the track comes into focus and drives the track forward to astonishing effect.

Incidentally, their live show – apparently they’ve only played a couple of shows – looks quite the thing, too.

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/Million Moons
/Memories of a Past Life
/You Be Good, I Love You

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I’ve long been a big fan of sweeping, emotional post-rock, but for many bands more recently, that has kinda meant that they are simply doing the same as everyone else. A few newer bands, though, seem to be bucking that trend: Din of Celestial Birds are one, and it turns out Million Moons are another. Their recent album You Be Good, I Love You has moments of both raw power and introspection, and on album highlight Memories of a Past Life, it initially lulls you into a false sense of calm, driven by a jazzy sound dominated by a saxophone. As the song picks up pace, though, the jazzy elements remain in complex drum patterns as it coils tighter and tighter and the riffs get heavier. By the furious coda, there’s even an echo of Russian Circles, but this is no mere copy: this is a band who are interested in new horizons.

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/Mildreda
/End of the Line
/Realities

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Jan Dewulf has been around for a while – Mildreda was his original project recently resurrected, and in the meantime (among other projects) was Diskonnekted for a while too. The latest album from him comes this summer, and explores the concept of reality from different perspectives – which makes more sense when you realise he has a degree in philosophy. Excellent lead single End of the Line is an interesting amalgam of Vancouver electro-industrial and the starker punch of Belgian EBM, and works well, as Dewulf appears to be considering ageing and facing up to death looming ever nearer.

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/Chat Pile
/Deep Blue
/Who Loves The Sun

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Since God’s Country made a splash a few years ago, Chat Pile have been relentless in making new music. Their electronic-tinged sludgy metal has begun to evolve, too: they are by no means a pop band now, but there’s a feeling that they are letting a bit of light into their sound. Particularly on latest single Deep Blue, where Ray B’s vocals are clearly audible, and they don’t feel the need to fill every second with noise. Instead there’s a bit of space in the mix, but it is no less heavy and still sounds like them.

Politically, too, their disgust at the dumbing down of the world and slow poisoning of everything by corporate money and indifference has not gone away, either. As Ray B says on this song: “No more lives to live
The time to act is now“.

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/2Heartz
/Sorrow

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Daniel Myer has a(nother) new project, this time in conjunction with Jean-Luc De Meyer. This project was originally introduced when Myer supported Front 242 at the first of the final shows in Brussels, where they played another track that should see the light of day at some point. This track, though, is an intriguing introduction to this collaboration, as it sees De Meyer in ballad territory, with Myer providing a near beatless, orchestral-synth backing that sounds grandiose and some way removed from what we might normally expect from either artist.

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/Fen
/Tectonic
/ELEMENTAL Part One: MOURNING EARTH

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British Black Metal veterans Fen – they were formed twenty years ago! – are back with their eighth album, and their fascinating take on the genre still stands them apart from their peers. Sure, there is the snarl and fire of Black Metal and tempos to match, but there is something very English about them. Perhaps, as on this album, it’s the preoccupation with misty, dank mornings and the eternal struggle to make it to another day that isn’t depressing and pointless. Their intention, too, of an album mostly recorded live and with a bit more space in the mix really shines through on this track as well – it sounds amazing.

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/Eye New Dark
/Backwards Through That Door
/Backwards Through That Door

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Two years since the first release under the solo moniker of Jill Sheridan (Null Device), they are back with another impressive new single. There is a light touch to the electronics, keeping the ethereal feel of that first release but with a melodic edge that keeps you intrigued, as they appear to be singing about the mental torture of recounting your mistakes over and over, and the fight not to be trapped in the past by them. KLACK and Null Device provide excellent remixes, too, that stretch the track in different directions.

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/Boy Harsher
/Jeans

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I’ve listened to the first new track from Boy Harsher in some time a few times now, and I’m genuinely not sure what to think. The Addicted To Love nods in the video are acknowledged by them – although that didn’t have latex-clad dominatrixes in it – and the slick video works with a somewhat superficial, light-touch electro song that is about small-town escape, but for me doesn’t have the snarl and punch of the best Boy Harsher material (Careful was the album of the year on this site in 2019, of course).

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/Caustic
/It’s Not Gatekeeping If You’re A Douchebag

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The 7,000th entry in 642 /Tuesday Ten posts is an artist I’ve featured a fair bit over the years, and am privileged to call Matt Fanale a good friend (I’ve known him the best part of twenty years now). While his music can be imbued with a sense of humour more often than not, he’s also entirely unafraid to express his views and stand on the right side of things, and once again, he’s done that here.

A thumping dancefloor kick underpins Matt’s furious takedown of the right-wing in the wider goth/industrial scene, telling them in no uncertain terms to fuck off and take their views with them. As he notes on Bandcamp, the entire scene was created by people outside and away from the status quo, and tolerance and love should be a given.