Blush Response - Ego Death (2025)

When I reviewed Blush Response previous album Sprawl in 2024 I wrote : "quality dark and industrial techno, but the most memorable part of the album is the couple of songs with vocals (from Marc Heal), showing that Blush Response could totally, with equal success, turn into an industrial metal band (reminding a bit NIN or Author & Punisher)". Seems I wasn't the only one to think that, since the new album Ego Death has vocals in every track. And the result is a noisy and abrasive combination of industrial metal, breakcore and EBM. A deadly mutation!

 

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Bong-Ra - Black Noise (2025)

Bong-Ra (Jason Köhnen) has first been known as a breakcore producer, but his love for underground metal is well known and not new (albums filled with samples from metal bands, collaborations, recent doom albums, etc.), so this Black Noise album, worshipping Godflesh through and through, even if it wasn't expected (you never really know what to expect from Bong-Ra!) isn't such a big surprise. But a pleasant one it is, since it's really well done, faithful to its inspiration but also including the Bong-ra touch  (yes, there are of course some jungle elements evoking Godflesh US and Them time, but the album is evoking everything Godflesh did, not only Godflesh at his most electro). Recommended!

 

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Slave To Society - Thrown To The Wolves (EP 2023)

Slave To Society is Andrew Bowen and the music is finely crafted drum & bass / breakcore with creepy synthscape in the background. On threes tracks plus a hardcore techno remix of one of those done by Rebekah, the remix isn't my favorite but at least comparing the original and the remix shows well the difference between drum & bass and techno, in case you're not familiar with it. In any case, Thrown To The Wolves is a very good EP for people into the darker & Harder side of drum & bass.

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Drumcorps - Better Days (2021)

Better Days is in my opinion the best release from Drumcorps, having the radicality and impact of "Grist" (the frst album from 2006) but less samples-based and with a more condensed and better songwriting, while the melodic/shoegazy element that appeared on "Falling Forward" is feature in the Better Days song, with a good result. And if you don't know yet Drumcorps it is an Aron Spectre project mixing breakcore and metal, jungle loops and beats and hm-2 guitars and blast beats. Aaron Spectre is also doing the vocals for the first time (it's not sampled vocals any more). Cyber grind? junglecore? Grindbreak? Drum & grind? Has been tried before but rarely so successfully. Recommended!

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Enduser / Needle sharing / The Teknoist - Enduser shares needles with The Teknoist (2012)

from time to time I'll review some electro music. dark and undergroud stuff of course. this one,  Enduser shares needles with The Teknoist, released by the excellent Ad noiseam, is a collaborative album between three "big names" of the breakcore / hardcore drum & bass scene. Enduser, The Teknoist and Needle sharing who did ten years before a collaboration on the same model with Panacea and Tarmvred. on this record you have a combination, with a different dosage on each track, of the hardcore techno fast drive and the rythms and live sounds of the drum & bass as well. and it's finely crafted so we can say it's the best of both worlds.

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