industrial metal

The tradition & historical record

Industrial metal is the fusion of heavy metal and industrial music, typically employing repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Prominent industrial metal acts include Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Fear Factory, Rammstein, KMFDM, and Godflesh. Industrial metal developed in the late 1980s, as industrial and metal began to fuse into a common genre. Industrial metal did well in the 1990s, with the success of acts such as Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein and Rob Zombie ¹

Industrial metal's popularity led a number of successful thrash metal groups, including Megadeth, Sepultura, and Anthrax, to request remixes by "industrial" artists. Some musicians emerging from the death metal scene, such as Fear Factory, Nailbomb, Autokrator and Meathook Seed, also began to experiment with industrial. Fear Factory, from Los Angeles, were initially influenced by the Earache roster (namely Godflesh, Napalm Death and Bolt Thrower). The German band Oomph! after their second album Sperm started to play industrial metal combined with elements of death metal and groove metal until the album Plastik. Sepultura singer Max Cavalera's Nailbomb, a collaboration with Alex Newport, also practiced a combination of extreme metal and industrial production techniques. Obituary guitarist Trevor Peres suggested drum machines for The End Complete, Obituary's most successful album; however the other band members' refusal led him to form Meathook Seed. ¹

In the early years of the 21st century, groups from the black metal scene began to incorporate elements of industrial music. Mysticum, formed in 1991, was the first of these groups. DHG (Dødheimsgard), Thorns from Norway and Blut Aus Nord, N.K.V.D. and Blacklodge from France, have been acclaimed for their incorporation of industrial elements. Other industrial black metal musicians include Aborym, and...And Oceans. In addition, The Kovenant, Mortiis and Ulver emerged from the Norwegian black metal scene, but later chose to experiment with industrial music. ¹

Several artists with their roots in progressive music, though not often associated with industrial metal scene, also incorporated industrial textures into their music. Later-era King Crimson, whose 2000s albums were referred as "industrial art metal", and OSI can be named as examples of progressive industrial metal. Several acts associated with extreme metal subgenres also mix progressive and avant-garde metal with industrial, those include the Hungarian experimental metal act Thy Catafalque, Blut aus Nord and Norwegian band Shining with their critically acclaimed Blackjazz album, which blended progressive rock, black metal, free jazz and industrial. Canadian artist Devin Townsend, the founder of industrial thrash metal band Strapping Young Lad, later fused industrial with progressive metal during his prolific solo career. Synthetic Breed and The Interbeing have also fused industrial with progressive metal. ¹

Coldwave is a subgenre of industrial metal originating in the 1990s. It has its roots in acts like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry. The style focuses on heavier, punk-based guitars, sampled hard rock-like guitars, synthesizer accompaniment, and acid house elements. Lyrical content is typically cyberpunk-oriented with pop music sensibilities, although it can vary. Chemlab's 1993 album Burn Out at the Hydrogen Bar is often considered the album that defined the coldwave style. Artists like the aforementioned Chemlab, 16 Volt and Acumen Nation exemplified this genre. The coldwave style began to wane rapidly when industrial music in general started to lose popularity in the latter half of the 1990s-early 2000's. Many artists within the genre moved on to different styles that included Hard rock, heavy metal, nu metal, cyber metal, synth-metal, synth-rock, and synth-pop among other genres. Coldwave today is a small, niche scene within industrial music. Very few bands today describe themselves or are described as coldwave. Bands like Cyanotic and Medicant Downline are perhaps the exception. Despite sharing the same name as the French genre, it is otherwise unrelated. ¹

Cyber metal is a subgenre of industrial metal which incorporates numerous elements found predominantly in EBM and aggrotech, including the use of more melodic and less repetitive riffs, in opposition to mostly metallic and mechanical sound of industrial music, coined by Fear Factory in the mid-90s. The Kovenant was the first band to develop cyber metal with some of its more well-known aspects: harsh vocals, extreme guitar melodies, and symphonic keyboards. A wave of other bands described as cyber metal would follow, including Deathstars, Mnemic, Sybreed, Turmion Kätilöt, Illidiance, Cypecore, Mechina, and Neurotech. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Industrial metal”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

industrial metal is Music genre; fusion of heavy metal and industrial music, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 10 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²