Provocative. That is the simplest way to describe industrial metal. From its origin, industrial metal has pushed the boundaries of “acceptable” music in both sound and image. The prolific use of white noise and harsh samples in combination with depictions of sexual perversion, the occult, and even fascism throughout lyrics and album covers all contribute to an aggressive and unique genre with a quite striking impact.
A very brief history of industrial Metal
Industrial metal was born out of an expansion of the avant-garde music scenes of the mid-70s. Bands started to experiment more and more with the use of non-melodic harsh noises, leading to numerous offshoot genres. All of these offshoots are generally united under the label industrial music, but industrial metal was the specific fusion of this sound with metal music and has become probably the most famous of the subgenres.
Album 1: THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL by Nine Inch Nails
This album might be the most famous industrial metal release and for a good reason. It is a disturbingly beautiful depiction of addiction, depression, and sexual violence with excellent lyrical imagery and leveraging of motifs throughout. The repeated descending keyboard line haunts the whole album until it finally comes to the forefront in the penultimate and most disturbing track, “The Downward Spiral”. This song climaxes with the narrator screaming in sheer agony until it resolves into “Hurt”, which is a painfully barren acoustic track that leaves an ambiguous ending to this tragic album.
Album 2: ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ (AKA: Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs) by Ministry
Of the albums on this list, this one is by far the most outlandish in its lyrical content. The story of the recording of this album is that after the success of the previous album, the band was given a generous upfront payment for the recording of their next album. However, instead of spending this money on recording, the band instead spent it on copious amounts of drugs. This resulted in the recording needing to be rushed, completed on an extremely tight budget, and while highly intoxicated. Despite all of this, the album is still an excellent depiction of what industrial metal has to offer and is a must listen.
Album 3: XTORT by KMFDM
This next album was hard to pick. I knew that I wanted to select a KMFDM album, but their catalog is so immense that it was hard to choose. Although I feel like their best lineup and subsequently some of their best songs came later in their career, I think that the best album as a whole is XTORT. This album is in many ways quite minimalistic, but I think that is what makes it work so well. Every sample, every rhythm, and every lyric was selected with intent, and it shows.
Album 4: Liebe macht Monster by Eisbrecher
This last album was also hard to pick because it stands as a stand-in for a whole subgenre of industrial metal, Neue Deutsche Härte. This German offshoot doubled down on the aggressive and provocative nature of industrial music and combined it with much heavier riffs. There are so many NDH bands to choose from, but since I could only select one, I elected to go with Liebe Macht Monster by Eisbrecher because I believe it shows off all that the genre has to offer. It is a distillation of what makes NDH into NDH.
I think it’s interesting how these genres become more and more ambiguous (though jokingly one could argue “industrial metal” is aptly named). Again, I really like the album cover art – I have to concede that these metal albums have much more interesting covers (even more so, band names) in comparison to other (more well-known) genres. What is meant by a “barren acoustic”? I’m curious – also, is there actual screaming employed in the singing? Overall, which type of metal would you say has the best, most in-depth lyricism?