The Electric Hellfire Club

“My motto is “Failure to evolve is exactly that, failure.” If I sounded the same that I sounded in ‘93, then I fucked up somewhere along the line. The intention of the band was not to create a formula and make a million dollars. The intention of the band was JUST to make music,” states Thomas Thorn, lead singer and founding member of the infamous Electric Hellfire Club.

Electronomicon is the fifth full-length release from Satan’s little helpers, and is certainly no failure. In fact, it is their most ambitious and best sounding album to date. Part of the genius lies in the fact that it was recorded at the famed Abyss Studios in Sweden, and produced and engineered by Tommy Tagtgren. EHC was the first American band to ever record there, (and may be the last, as studio owner Peter Tagtgren has decided to close the studio.)

The Residents

The Residents have kept their identity secret for twenty-eight years.  They have no faces, no gender, no race and no personality.  This decision was reached because they wanted a separation between their personal and professional lives.  Anonymity was and is their only rule.  These faceless anti-stars have stood on the fringes of the music world happily releasing their often-disturbing music to critical acclaim.  They are supposedly originally from Shreveport, Louisiana, and one is the father of Siamese Twins.  Maybe one is a former Protestant Minister and another has one of the largest model railroad collections in the world. 

Regarded by many to be the original pioneers of the music video, The Residents produced their first video in 1972 (Vileness Fats), but really came into their own when they released Third Reich ‘n Roll in 1977.  In this video, the band is dressed entirely in newspapers, as well as the instruments and set.  There is crude stop action animation filmed in black and white color that makes the hair on your neck stand up.

Marilyn Manson

Marilyn Manson knows a thing or two about fire and brimstone. His music scorches the earth like flames from the fingertips of an angry God, blazing through anything in its path and pulsing with an industrial-strength rage and heavy metal-inspired bravado, offering the perfect rough-and-tumble accompaniment to vocals that spray from the speakers like a hailstorm unleashed from the heavens, pelting the skin and piercing the psyche. Driven by equal parts rebellious fervor and spiritually charged dogma, he knows no path other than that of the philosophically profound and socially rehabilitative, but to hear his critics offer their take on his rock ‘n’ roll tantrums, he’s a disease in which every one of society’s self-serving watchdogs has a cure. His Portrait Of An American Family debut laid the groundwork for a band that would revolutionize the face of modern music with Antichrist Superstar, a release that gave the American youth a figure to rally behind, and American powers-that-be a figure to rally against. Manson shifted outward gears from religiously tempered to sexually shape-changing with Mechanical Animals, but his message stayed the same within music that took on a more refined and high-polished sheen. He’s been one of the most chronicled artists of the past decade, but consider it all the calm before the storm. Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) is his outfit’s most ambitious outing yet, swirling their heaviest music to date within a soundscape that turns the hypocrisy of an American culture on end. His physical image is eerie enough to scare his Omega character into submission, and the music has hooks that scrape the skin with an infectious blend of heavy metal thunder and punk rock lightning. Marilyn Manson offered this exclusive look at the vast array of forces that shaped his entertainment Eden Holy Wood and its shadow-filled photo negative Death Valley. Welcome to Holy Wood…

Rammstein

Just how far should a band go to win over a crowd? Rammstein go further. Some musicians breathe flames, Till Lindemann sings while engulfed in them. And that’s just to open the show. With only a handful of American dates under their belts, the buzz surrounding German industrial metal giants Rammstein is spreading like wildfire, propelling their Sehnsucht debut to gold status only six months after its release, and earning them the second headliner’s position on Korn’s Family Values tour. That may seem a bit ironic for a band whose lyrics hammer from brazen metal imagery to treading a fine line between sweetly erotic and disturbing sexual extremes. Then again, when the song titles in question are smash single and MTV Buzz Clip “Du Hast”-which translates to English, “You Hate”-and the more provocatively penned “Küss Mich,” “Tier” and “Spiel Mit Mir”-“Kiss Me,” “Beast” and “Play With Me,” respectively-the risk of being too risqué is lost. Rammstein are from Germany, sing entirely in German, and according to guitarist Richard Kruspe, who joined me on the phone from his homeland with a translator, they write their music in German, as well. Whether listening to their pair of tracks on David Lynch’s Lost Highway soundtrack-edits of ``Rammstein” and ``Hierate Mich,” their American unveilings-or any of the tracks on Sehnsucht, they slam with all the eerie forboding of a militant strike, twisting American metal and industrial with their foreign flair for results that crash between hollow hauntings and throbbing mayhem. Then there’s the performance. Live, the six imports from the other side of the crumbled Iron Curtain detonate more explosions than an air raid, and spew enough sexual imagery to dement even the sickest set of Family Values. Behold, America, the wrath of Rammstein is upon us…

Ministry

Maximum Ink’s first cover story! Paul Gargano interviews Ministry’s Paul Barker…

Ministry was never intended for the faint at heart, but for even the most faithful Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker fans, Filth Pig seems to be, well, exceptionally filthy. Ministry’s long-awaited sixth studio release digs deep for the duo, taking artistic turns that previous efforts couldn’t hint at. Whether it’s the musical presence of mandolin, harmonica and pedal steel guitar, the surprising lack of samples, or the more personal tone of the lyrics, evolution has crashed head-on with music’s missing links. With all other side projects on hold, Ministry bassist, programmer and sometime-vocalist Paul Barker offers a closer look at the dynamics of, and dirt behind, Filth Pig.