After a couple of lean months, suddenly I’ve been deluged with new music worth writing about. I’m strict about keeping the Tracks of the Month list to ten, though, so some may be held off until next month.

Playlists:
Spotify
YouTube
Soundcloud

But in the meantime, here are ten absolutely worth hearing. I’ve been feeling a little uninspired music-wise in previous months, this month has really got me interested again. Keep it coming, folks.

Track of the Month

Unusually, I’m not going to say a great deal myself about this, as Marc Church has already nailed it (in a comment on my original link to this):

“Very interesting to watch how this band has developed along the way. It’s like ‘look what happens when we get rid of all the teen angst and 20-something rage’ – the results are amazing, mature and sophisticated (yes the early noise material was grand but this is ‘industrial’ for grown ups).”

All I’m going to add – who knew that a band so restless in style could end up settling on such awe-inspiring, downbeat synthpop? Otherwise, you should be going to pre-order the album right now. The two months until release are going to drag.
I Will Remember It All Differently is available to pre-order now and is released in early July.

After a well-received album last year – and the lead song from it (Delusional) made the amodelofcontrol 2013 Best Tracks list – Joey Blush is back with a few new tracks and a set of remixes, collected together on The Drift EP (with an album to follow later in the year). The lead track is once again flat-out brilliant, a complex, multi-layered electronic construction where the vocals drift (pun intended) in-and-out of the mix, heavily distorted, before the fog clears for another killer chorus.
The Drift EP is out now and available on Bandcamp.

Call it preparation for my forthcoming DJ slot at Monster Truck, perhaps, but I’ve been on the lookout for more of what you may call “industrial metal” of late, seeing as I seem to have had a dearth of it coming my way recently. Slave Unit’s ripping new album fits the bill nicely, that’s for sure. This is the opening track, a chugging, bass-heavy monster that will sure as hell be in my DJ sets going forward.
Through With You is out now and available from WTII Records.

After a handful of strong, standalone tracks from Sheffield-based industrial project R&M over the past year or two – not to mention an exceptional remix for the equally-promising 3TEETH – a full EP is finally on the way, with R&M picked up by a Texan label (are there really no outlets for this kind of thing in the UK now? Sheesh). The artist has been kind enough to send me a pre-release promo, and I’m glad to say that it continues the heavy, industrial-metal hybrid sound that has characterised his material so far. The lead track is a slowed-down, looped stomp, with less samples this time, but a feel of menace that few bands can usually attain. Elsewhere on the EP – if time allows I’m going to review it in full at some point – there is even a hint of vocals on at least one track, with dabbling in EBM too. Promising signs.
The $OCIAL £UTURES €P is out soon on Young Cubs.

One UK artist that is seeing releases through a UK label now are London industrial band System:FX, who are now signed to Juggernaut. I’ve been a fan for a while of the band, and this new EP seems to open up some new avenues for them – while the guitar-led industrial fury is present and correct for some tracks (the storming lead track for a start), things get interesting further into the EP. Deb provides (spoken word) vocals on the downbeat, slow-motion Failure, while Days Like This sees Gemsy from Dreams Divide join Steve for an intriguing ballad that works well. Their stock-in-trade remains hyperspeed industrial-with-guitars, mind, and the title track spits political venom in the lyrics while the beats and guitars roar past – with perhaps a clearer link than ever to their work with Phil Barry in Be My Enemy in terms of sound, to my ears. This is no bad thing!
The We Are The Broken EP is out now on Juggernaut and can be bought on Bandcamp.

After a busy few years from Daniel Myer – with various side-projects, not least Architect, dominating proceedings since the last Haujobb album in 2011 – he appears to have come back ’round to recording as Haujobb again. This single appears to be a one-off for now, and is an intriguing shift somewhat from the last time we heard from Haujobb. How? Well, to put it mildly it seems to be a nod to the EBM of the past, with Jean-Luc de Meyer delivering his finest vocal perfomance in an age, and musically it certainly also sounds like it could have come from a mid-80s Front 242 release. This is no bad thing, of course, and it also comes with a wonderful video that humourously nods to the iconic Headhunter video in many, many ways.
The 7″ of We Must Wait is available to pre-order now and is released in June.

Prude have been mooted for some time – first track Darkroom appeared on Gears Gone Wild way back in 2008! – but 2014 finally sees the release of the first album under the name, and while a couple of tracks have also been around for a while, I decided to hold off until we saw the album release date announced. So here we are – this is Jared Louche’s post-Chemlab project, ably assisted by others including Matt Fanale from Caustic, and the results are in similarly dark realms to Chemlab in subject matter, but the end result is perhaps a whole lot more rock than industrial. Not that this is a bad thing – this is awesomely anthemic, glam-tinged rock that could just have a wide appeal.
the dark age of consent is released on 04-July.

Now, I don’t usually link to just snippets of songs, but this is so fucking good that I’ve got no choice. E-Craft are back – at last! – with their long, long promised album Re-Arrested, and this track takes the shit-kicking title track and ups the ante even more. A blistering, dancefloor-bound monster with an anthemic chorus and a general feeling of immense power – rivethead heaven, basically – this is E-Craft returning after nearly ten years to the electronic force of Dos Unit, after a period in between where they seriously lost their way. I’ve lamented for some time that we’ve not had enough heavy industrial dancefloor music, great to see E-Craft deliver.
Re-Arrested is released on 30-May and can be pre-ordered from Resurrection Records now.

While we’re patiently awaiting the return of Cyanotic (Worst Case Scenario should drop soon, as I understand it), another of Sean Payne’s side-projects have dropped. This is the first release for his purely hip-hop project, with a distinctly futurist bent that very much deserves the term “industrial hip-hop” – bass-heavy beats, glitchy electronics, and a revolving cast of rappers bring the vocals. All four tracks are great, but the pick for me is the apocalypse-themed End of Days, with wonderfully ominous, sparse beats underpinning the dense, wordy rapping.
Glitch Mode Presents: Robohop: Prime Directives 1-4 is out now and can be obtained on Bandcamp.

Who knew the new Tom Shear side-project would be the best thing he’s done in ages? It had rather passed me by until at least five different people raved about it to me at Resistanz the other week – to many peoples surprise he even played some of it in the encore live – and hearing that it was perhaps a bit of a return to the older A23 sound, I thought it a good idea to try it. They were right, too – indeed to the point that I’m a little surprised this hasn’t been released as an A23 album, and it certainly still sounds like them. The melodies and big choruses are still there, the main difference being the darker electronics, denser sound and perhaps harsher feel than what we’ve come to expect. Either way, it’s great to see that Tom Shear still has quite a bit of inspiration in the tank.
Oceania is out now and can be obtained on direct from the band.