Industrial music reviews

aphex had not yet discovered hi creativity until 1991 and LSD?
ha ha....richard james was already there inthe mid to late '80s..
wrench the glue outta yer ears.....

I can't really add to the other reviews. Again, this album was/is very influential on dance music of the 90's, it contains a luxurious blend of sounds, has one of my all time favorite songs on it ("further back and faster"), and is definitely one to listen to if you decide to 'get into' various illegal substances. Note that I am not endorsing taking illegal substances.

If you buy this, or have already, make sure you pick up a copy of "Unnatural History III". There is a track on that called "Meaning what exactly?" which was originally recorded as an intro to the track "Things Happen", and left off for some reason. I slotted that song after "Teenage Lightning I" and before "Things Happen" on my Mac and it sounds quite nice where it belongs.

Just as the clever title "Loves Secret Domain" (LSD) states, this is a mind expanding release of electronic music. Weird samples, techno beats and Video game sounds collide with catchy synths and trancelike rhythms. I dislike most techno, and don't really favor the current EBM trends in Industrial music, but this album is one of my favorites of anything associated with those genres. Coil is a innovative group which is comprised of some former members of Industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle. However, compared to other post-Gristle projects, I think that they really took the adventurous spirit and went somewhere with it. I do not think that (former Gristle leader Geneis P'Orridge's) Psychic TV's "Acid house era" material compares evenly with albums such as this.

Simply one of the best live CD's I've ever heard.'Sphinctour' was recorded on the band's 1996 world tour in support of their 'Filth Pig' effort.Superb sound mix,it just doesn't get any better than this.Each of the CD's eleven gut-crutching tracks were recorded from a different city,like Toronto,Hamburg,etc.However,'Sphinctour' SOUNDS as if it were one continuous show.I LOVE that in a live album.Shows class,I think.Tunes I found that were more than worth repeated plays include the in-your-face "Psalm 69","Reload","Just One Fix"(know several fans that say this is their favorite Ministry cut),the slammin' classic "N.W.O.","Hero","Thieves" and "Lava".Top rate industrial metal as you like it.Line-up:Al Jourgensen-vocals,Paul Barker-bass,Louis Svitek&Zlatko Hukic-guitars,Duane Buford-keyboards and Reynolds Washan-drums.Highly recommended.

For reasons unknown, years after the actual Sphinctour came to an end in '96, Ministry released this amazing live album, consisting mainly of songs off "Psalm 69" and "Filth Pig", and it couldn't get any better. The only way this album could possibly get any better is if it were either 2-cds, or if the boys would have at least included "So What" or "Stigmata" (featured on the DVD). That or if they would have waited and maybe some song from "Dark Side Of The Spoon" would have been on here. All that aside, this is all the amazing intensity that is Ministry live. Even people who don't like "Filth Pig" won't be able to enjoy the live versions of such great tunes like "Crumbs" and the title track, but for some reason the guys felt the need to make "Lava" 8 minutes long and it gets a little annoying in the middle. Oh well... From the opening track the classic "Psalm 69" all the way down to the slow, somber, rather depressing rendition of "The Fall", this is one live release that is guaranteed to take your breath away, I promise. Nothing tops the version of "Thieves" on here. I can't imagine the f*cking pit, man. If you're new to Ministry and love live albums this is definitely one cd I would highly recommend to you, and for all the hardcore Ministry fans, we'll all love this to death as well.

Marking Ministry's first recording on new label Sanctuary Records; "Sphinctour" shows the modern day Ministry still being able to pound out their brutal and unadulturated brand of industrial carnage live. Al Jourgenson's voice sounds great, in fact possibly better than he did on Ministry's last live album "In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up". Every single song, from "Psalm 69", "Filth Pig", "Just One Fix", "N.W.O.", "Hero", "Thieves", and "Lava" are some of the best live recordings from any band I have ever heard, and proves wrong all the naysayers that have said this band doesn't have it anymore (even though I wasn't too fond of the albums "Filth Pig" or "Dark Side of the Spoon", I still had my faith in Al, Paul and crew). My only gripe is that "Sphinctour" is too short set wise. I would have loved to have seen "Burning Inside", "Land of Rape & Honey", "Cannibal Song", "Breathe", "Stigmata", "Tonight We Murder", and yes, even "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" included on this set, but oh well. All in all, "Sphinctour" is a fantastic live album that is a definite must have for any and every Ministry fan.

Their first CD is called Here at the Home. I somehow managed to find one at some online store...for a very reasonable price!

Also, for a while there the dollar store near me was selling Sleeper. I bought them all for my friends :)

I saw these guys live, by mistake (at Prince's club in Mpls.) opening for the Psychedelic Furs, and they stole the show!!!!
This is entrenched in my top 5 favorite albums/cd's.
Great sound, lyrics and production. Not one bad tune on Abort, Sleeper is almost as good but Abort will, for me stand the test of time.
Jane LaValley's voice is as good as anyone out there. This is a must have.

Abort is a great disc. The single Joyride introduced me to this phenominal band long ago. Their second release sleeper is just as good if not better than Abort. They also have a disc that was released in the Boston area only. I believe it's called pinwheel. Awesome band.. I mourn that they no longer release music

The reason i'm giving it a 4 is because. Carlys song was not the same as it was on the movie. On the movie it had a lot more felling and saddness. The other trackes are really good. I love oh carolina my fish like to dance to it. Pretty good soundtrack except carlys song.

Released in '93 while the techno rage was still emerging or going strong some tracks will sound dated...Others still hold their own ground pretty good.UB-40's take on an Elvis classic was blasphemy to die-hard Elvis fans. Plus, the fact it was a video played to death on MTV didn't help matters. But, leave it to UB-40 to give it their special spin with their electronic reggae and horn treatment and make it their own (remember Red, Red Wine?!...the old Neil Diamond classic).
Enigma's hauntingly Sadeness musings on Carly's Song and Carly's Loneliness make the soundtrack worth owning if you don't like anything else on the roster.The bonus is that this special mix for the track was re-mixed for the Enigma album it came off from or was put into (the version found on Cross of Changes cd by Enigma has a more Middle Eastern horn and percussion feel).So, Carly's Song on Sliver is the original or special mix found nowhere else (I prefer this version to the Cross of Changes Enigma album version). Enigma's contribution actually stands out enough to give the soundtrack it's trademark thematic sound and most memorable song !Massive Attack, Neneh Cherry, and Shaggy produced tracks in almost the same suit or vein as Engima's. Quirky but likeable tunes by Fluke, Lords of Acid, and Heaven 17 throw in a sort of 80's retro New Wave/Techno sound while maintaining the early 90's feel (afterall '93 was not too far away from the late 80's). Remaining artists contribute tracks of a more alternative, experimental/industrial rock nature...Where the film failed to make it's box office mark, the soundtrack was more of a sure bet !

I remember two things about the movie "Sliver": One--it was one of the stupidest movies I'd ever seen, and two--that the soundtrack was so good it was ALMOST worth watching the whole film just to listen to the tunes contained herein.

People beat their heads against the wall when they heard UB40's version of "Can't Help Falling In Love", but they're a bunch of nitwits. It made it to number one on the strength of the band's interpretation--the original was overdone as it was. I liked it, but this soundtrack offers much more.

Shaggy's "Oh Carolina" was a dancefloor classic and still remains a staple of any self-respecting club. Enigma's bookends "Carly's Song" and the reprise "Carly's Loneliness" represent the band's zenith, and when you throw in Massive Attack's "Unfinished Symphony", you've got a powerhouse album that still holds up.

One of the best soundtracks of the 90s, hands down.

as for that one guy who said 'overrated' i dunno. just listen to the music yourself and ignore everybody else. but pay attention to me(haha). i love this album. it's so easygoing, great beats, lots of weird noises and layers and layers of cushy effects that are oh so pleasing to listen to. everything flows wonderfully, i'm just 'captivated' when i listen to it. great industrial, smooth, catchy, danceable, awesome. it's like what the snog guy says, don't drown in the mire, wallow in it.. if you're feeling down about the drudgery of your everyday life or anything just throw this on and relax. you'll be in a better mood by the time you're done.

What can I say? David Thrussell is ... brilliant ... This CD is infectious, groovin', sociopolitically conscious, and not just a bit sarcastic--all at the same time. Wow. If you've never heard SNOG, you should probably start with LIES INC., but if you've got some extra credit to burn, add this one on! (If not, then buy it later.)

This is a great Snog cd. I am especially fond of the "Normal People" song and "Slide into Extinction." They sound basically like industrial to me. I got this cd from a friend, and I highly recommend Snog to ANYONE who is different and enjoys industrial music.

'Point Blank' is the first of two releases by this short-lived band.Nailbomb was a side project of Fudge Tunnel's Alex Newport and Sepultura's Max Cavalera.Boy,is this CD H-E-A-V-Y!!Maybe too heavy for it's own good.It's decent,though.Good industrial metal to take in,that is if you're willing.All thirteen cuts kick ass,like "Wasting Away","24 Hour Bullsh*t","Cockroaches" and "Sick Life" especially.Just might appeal to some fans of Godflesh,Corrosion Of Conformity,Ministry and Napalm Death.

For years I hunted CD stores looking for another CD of this band, but then I found out it was a one time side project deal. Oh well...it's just one of those classic "must have" Cd's like SOD, or Evil Dead.

It's basically like the other reviews - take the best guitars and aggression from Sepultura and that "brazillian" sound, and electrify it with some techno bits and samples. It is so flipping awesome, I love it. Some of the riffs are just badass...

Must have if you're a metal head.

While Nailbomb may not be the most original band, they're one of the most powerful. Ministry was the first to use a two-man operation, a guitarist / vocalist, a bass player, and a drum machine, to play guitar driven industrial. Following in the footsteps of Ministry were Skrew, Rig, Godflesh, and Nailbomb. Next to Godflesh, Nailbomb was the best of the followers.
Max Cavelera, of the well-known Sepultura, plays guitar and Alex Newport, of the less well-known Fudge Tunnel, plays bass. Together they made some of the heaviest and fastest industrial metal ever made.
The suggested intensity and violence on the cover of "Point Blank" are a good preview of what the music is like. Also, the real life picture is sure to repel the antiwar hippie types, which is probably an intentional thing.
The album has a military feel to it, but not in a patriotic sense. It's more like a full-scale destructive assault for destructions sake. The diving, grinding guitars have an acidic quality and can eat a hole right through flesh. The hammering drums can knock holes in brick walls.
The album kicks off with the hyper-speed "Wasted Life", which foreshadow the punk nihilism that partly defines the lyrical theme of the album. The music along with the lyric gives a "nothing to lose type" feeling of freedom. "Sum of Your Achievements", "For F:(ks Sake", "World of S:(t", and "Sick Life" drive their message home.
The album is worth owning for the one of the greatest thrash anthems of all time, "Sick Life". Lyrical and musically, it's a glorious moment in all of music. Forget my friends, they already forgot me!" and "Because I hate myself" is some of the greatest sing along lines ever. The sawing guitars and hammering beat give away to a scream and heavy guitar power cords that lift you up like an explosion. The song falls apart into feedback and chaos in almost reminiscent of Sonic Youth. Then, it comes out even more powerful than before. It's easily one of the greatest songs of all time.
There are very few albums out there can pummel your head like this one. If you have the bravery to listen to it, you will be forever changed.

So I stumbled upon a Wikipedia article on "apocalyptic folk," a genre apparently spearheaded by Current 93, most notably on this particular recording and its successors. The description intrigued me, and for years I had heard the praises of this band sung by many of my more new wave / industrial / goth associates. So here's my two cents:

Did you ever notice how, on every heavy metal album of the eighties, there's always one interlude, usually instrumental, of corny Medieval music (usually complete with flutes or some such sbomination,) that, at lest for me, brings to mind images of those midgets that come out and dance amongst the miniature Stonehenge during that part in Spinal Tap? Or perhaps they bring to mind "Bravely Bold Sir Robin" from Monty Python and The Holy Grail. In either case, these are silly little outings, but were apparently part of some obscure clause in every 80's metal band's record contract. Well, imagine, if you will, an entire album of those numbers and that's pretty much what we've got here. I'm sorry - I really wanted to like this, knowing that this guy's got some history as one of the pioneers of some primitive, f**ked-up tape loop analog industrial. But it is just a cliche, renaissance fair-styled rendition of what Medieval folk music was supposedly like.

I suppose the fact that the "apocalyptic folk" genre in general and Current 93 in particular revel in the revival of extinct pagan religions of Northern Europe should have sent up red flags - such things are never a good sign, as witnessed by the Norweigan Black Metal bands which inevitably wound up mixed up with neo-Nazi ideology when seeking out their Nordic roots. Yeah, ok, go worship Loki or whatever - that's real forward-thinking and will inevitably lead to original, innovative thinking and music. The key to incorporating various religious / mystical concepts into your art is to do it in such a way that you're not simply nostalgizing / romanticizing a time that may never have been. That's backward thinking. The key is to make something new. I don't think Current 93 does this.

"Thunder Perfect Mind" is a gnostic poem of rare beauty. We only know it because it remained hidden until it was discovered in Egypt in 1945, escaping the repression of the early church in the second century of our age. The ideas of Gnosticism were considered dangerous because they defied the instuticionalised rules of the church proposing a more personal relation to God. What does this have to do with this magnificent album of Current 93? In this record David Tibet follows a somehow similar operation inherent to Gnosticism entering a more personal path culminating a extraordinary discography influenced by a fascination with religion around the texts of Christianism, Budhism, Paganism, etc (Imperium, Swastikas for Noddy, Earth Covers Earth, etc). This fascination is to continue for the brilliant albuns to follow, but with an increasing personal touch (Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre, All the Pretty Little Horses, Soft Black Stars, Sleep as His House). "Thunder Perfect Mind" is the key album of this transition, where both paths, the historic and the personal, start to collide and mix. There is nothing like it. The strangeness of the musical atmosphere throw us in the sphere of transcendence through imanence, where the terrestrial dialectic opositions disseminates in an all inclusive world. This album doesn't simply illustrate the Sacred Word. And it doesn't only gives you an individual expression, a personal interpretation. We, along with Mr Tibet and friends, confront ourselves with the incommensurability of Being. That is why this music is so powerful and cannot be easily described. It just opens the world through truly creative work. This is the poetic dimension of music, that cannot be understood as ligth entertainment for a capitalist society. There is melancholy ("sadness song"), schizophrenie ("Hitler as Kalky", "All the stars are dead now"), dreadness ("Thunder Perfect Mind"), pure beauty ("Mary waits in silence"), and so on. If you are interested in something that unveils our profound human nature this is one place to start musically digging...

This album is gorgeous and quite an experience. If you are open to letting music take you places, this is the band for you. I do agree that this is not their strongest release, but it is their most accessible to those who want to hear 'songs'. ethereal and horrifying.

Anyways, this is one of my favorite albums of all time for several reasons, mostly deeply personal. If you want an introduction to neofolk - start here. if this disapoints you, you probably wont like the genre. if you already love the genre, this is an essential.

Fun and lighthearted, simple yet well executed. Reminds me a little bit of Mix Master Mike.
The vocal tracks are a good change up in the hypnotizing melange of sound effects and flow.

My friends and I happened on a a copy of a tape years ago that turned out to be "bundle of joy". We had know way of knowing this at the time beacuse the tape was blank. After listening to it about a thousand times, we heard a referance made to UP RECORDS and figured it out from there. This music was a sort of sound track of thoes times spent with a close friend. Since then my friend has passed away but his memory will never escape me due in large part to this memorable album!!!!!

but I can't go without listening to this for more than a month since I first heard it. A friend of mine got two slightly different copies of this in a bulk purchase from an excellent independent music store liquidating it's largely scorched inventory after a pretty devastating fire (only the good die young). In an act of uncharacteristic charity, I ended up with a slightly charred demo copy. I've treasured it ever since.

Having dispensed with the maudlin discovery story, beep-boop ditties like Day Late & A Dollar Short, I Dream Of Ghosts, Cruisin For Sentient Beings, and Help For Your Aching Back move right along with haunting hooks, catchy beats, and ghostly atmospherics. Suitable for rainy downtown nights, many of which I'm sure the creator spent in a garage-turned-evil-electronic-laboratory, programming this eccentric classic.

A one of a kind. After the third or fourth listen, you will crave it's damp comfort. I am held in a puzzled sense of wonder.

This is just about all the Chrome you'll need if you're a first time listener, plus it's a great alternative than trying to track down the individual albums on CD, nearly all of which are out of print, however, as many of the other reviews have stated, there is a lot missing. True, I can live without many of the instrumental songs that got the boot, but the missing five studio tracks from "Blood on the Moon" are sorely missed.

True, you get four of them as live version, but the quality is rather muddy and makes me wonder why they couldn't just put the studio versions instead. In fact, if they got rid of the live songs, they could have fit "Blood on the Moon" in it's entirety.

Besides that one gripe, it's a great box set for beginners and collectors alike.

I've owned this for years now and still play it all the time. Chrome were one of those kinds of bands that covered a great deal of stylistic territory; Rock, Psych, early Industrial, Experimental, Gothiness; and managed to mesh it all seemlesly together into one shuddering, bloody mess that still sounds fresh and interesting 25 years later. Alien Soundtracks and Half MAchine Lip Moves are classics. Personally my favorites are the material from disc 2 albums like Red Exposure and Blood on the Moon. But actually its all good. And dont beleive the guy who says there is a lot missing, there really isn't. Only a few tracks were left out (for reasons of disc space i would presume). All in all this is one of my favorite bands of all time and I would recomend that anyone interested in any sort of artsy obscure rock track it down.

From an international perspective, Chrome remains one of the most important and seminal West coast band of the late 1970s / early 1980s. This box contains everything you need to know about the band, and almost all their tracks.

I would like to add two comments to the previous reviews:

1) the sound quality of this re-issue is much better than the vinyl version. I have checked the differences in sound stage and dynamics and this version is much better, it has a very good "studio" sound on a number of tracks (some early tracks have a poor sound quality, but this is probably due to the original material)

2 - the selection is slightly different from the original Chrome Box : there are additional tacks (including live tracks in Italy), and some tracks have been ommitted or shortened, in particular tracks from the rare "Chronicles" series. It strikes me that this selection is perhaps better than the original box.

Conclusion : a "must have" box, with superior sound and excellent track selection. However, if you are looking for some rare tracks such as "Wings are born in the night" in the full-length version, you should also buy the original vinyl edition (for a lot more money, these days)

This is great music to kill your parents to. Also excellent for clearing the house of drunk friends after a party.
Can't say I'm in the mood all the time, but it does the trick - psychotic, chaotic, destructive.

This is probably THE best hardcore album I've heard. "Mortified" is one of my favorite tracks.

I dont have this CD but i have most of the vinyls these songs are from.. All i have to say is, songs: Welcome to hell, 246 and Real Hardcore are worth the $.. alone. This is REAL hardcore!