Today, class, we’re going to use an exceptionally nerdy analogy to help define what Combichrist’s new album The Venom In The Mouth Of God both is and isn’t. Bear with us - the analogy is painfully arcane, but works in the context of dealing with an industrial record.
In recent years, electronic music has become pervasive in the mainstream as well as on the fringes - both in the sense that digital programming and electronic sounds are being incorporated into compositions at an increased rate, and that in some cases, electronic entities themselves are writing the music (see the current controversy with AI artists breaking through the country music charts.) With that comes a sense that the music should be brighter, springier, more energetic, as electronics so often take us into higher registers and up-tempo beats.
Here’s where the analogy starts - there is a sense that electronic music is a late-era Gundam - agile, accurate, festooned in bright colors and blazing across the sky at a nigh-unbelieveable rate. Combichrist, by virtue of being an industrial band from back before the proliferation and ready access of electronica, is a lumbering OmniMech; a seventy-five ton Mad Cat (or Timber Wolf,) of teeth and forward-facing visceral power, painted in unforgiving gunmetal gray.
Ever since the band composed the soundtrack for the video game DmC: Devil May Cry, there’s been a theory that the band has slowly moved more toward metal and away from the straight industrial they cut their teeth on. The culmination of this was 2024’s excellent CMBCRST, which one writer on these pages named the Album of the Year.
The Venom In The Mouth of God, slams the gears into reverse, and takes the band back to thundering basics. It is not until halfway into the album with “Rise” that the band even hints at the metal that forged so much of the three albums before (we remain convinced that it was coded into the Geneva Convention and Vatican II that every industrial band has to write a song called “Rise” or “Risen” or “Rise Up” or some such.)
While those metal hammers get dropped now and again, that’s not really what The Venom… is about. The album wants to be sparse and haunting and deadly, a brooding monster with a fission core that threatens with every ponderous stride and shadow of presence. While the songs at the outset prove the attempt, it’s in the back half where the record really flashes its jagged fangs.
No song on the album more proves Combichrist’s (and ideaman Andy LaPlegua’s) skill at composing in this vein than the questionably mature “S.T.F.U.” (not just a John Cena maneuver anymore!) This is one of those rare songs that shouldn’t work, but does - it is, ironically, kind of a strange cousin of Fear Factory’s ill-conceived “Back The Fuck Up” from 2001, a stream-of-consciousness quasi-rap that has no business being as well assembled or catchy as it is.
It sets the stage for the rest of the album, where, as odd as this sounds, Combichrist composes a series of beat poems on steroids, with LaPlegua as the cybernetic Allen Ginsberg. Again, should this work? Maybe not, but listen to the venomous undercurrent of “The Way We Want To Be Seen,” and try to find a crack in the armor. LaPlegua has always had this in him; the ability to set introspective missives on personal anguish and impermanence to a cinematic beat (thinking of “Bottle of Pain” from One Fire,) but he really takes the chains off for this album and leans into the style.
What the listener takes away from The Venom In The Mouth Of God, will really come down to what side of Combichrist is preferred. Those who exclusively believe the band’s best material has been in the their last three albums may well find this a harder journey, where those who lament the band ever straying from their roots will rejoice. Either way, the fact remains that the album’s final eight songs will take the listener on a journey of steel and fire and discontent, with nary a beam saber in sight.
As the years go by and I've been doing this list for some, oh, I don't know, decade and a half or whatever, it seems to me that each list may be increasingly influenced by where I am in my life - which is to say more accurately, what do I feel like hearing? Which is to say, this comes with an admission: the list that follows may simply be my personal best albums list. Okay, let me not insult you - it's obvious that this is my list, my name is on the damn thing. What I mean is that this may be MY list - it may not be the best albums if we're judging on technical prowess or compositional acuity. It may be simply a list of albums that I enjoyed the most this year. And so be it.
Okay, a brief review of the rules: - Must be an original studio composition in 2024 - No re-releases - No Greatest Hits or compilations of any kind - No live albums
Without further preamble -
HONORABLE MENTION – While She Sleeps – Self Hell
I, for one, wasn’t sure rap metal would ever make a comeback. Nor was I really sure that it should. And maybe it still hasn’t. But there’s a couple artists this year that tried to put a toe back in that formerly pristine but now dirtied and forgotten pool. While She Sleeps was one of them. (Quick shout-out to Ihsahn’s self-titled album for narrowly missing out here.)
EP OF THE YEAR: Alestorm – Voyage of the Dead Marauder EP
You know how some people are ‘small doses’ people? I think Alestorm is a ‘small doses’ band for me. And this was the perfect dose. As ever with Alestorm, the comedy is acerbic and not for the faint of heart, but that does nothing to reduce its hilarity. And the title track? As legit a song as you can imagine.
11 – Reliqa – Secrets of the Future
Not all that dissimilar from While She Sleeps in concept, but this is the better execution. The band is tight and in control and they know the sound they’re going for, even as it crosses several aesthetic and sonic boundaries.
10 – Black Note Graffiti – Resist the Divide
Not a single song over 3:45, and punctuated by short, minimalist riffs. There’s something about the mechanics of this album that’s kind of hypnotic. Think Static-X, but dial way back on the gain and slow the tempo down to half speed. But it’s similar in that the constructions are sparse, and I mean that as a compliment. You can hear every part being played clearly, and no song overstays its welcome. A better comparison – like a slightly less-screamy, more deliberate Hellfreaks.
9 – Dungeon Crawl – Maze Controller
I kinda hate how much I like this album, because it is so unapologetically nerdy and based around late nights mainlining caffeine while you watch your graph-paper hero lose hit points because of a bad luck dice roll. (And yes, I hate it because I’ve been there.) When you strip that way, thought, there’s a really good, authentic thrash album underneath, and as I look back, I seem to have a place for that on my list every year (last year was Hellevate’s “The Purpose Is Cruelty” EP.) The guitar work here is fun, the lyrics are appropriately absurd, the whole thing just feels right.
8 – Sundrifter – An Earlier Time
After Sundrifter released the very good “Visitations” back in whatever-the-hell year it was, I remember thinking to myself “damn, if those guys could just focus this a little and keep it within the margins, they’d really make something great.” Well, now we have “An Earlier Time,” and it’s exactly the apex of Sundrifter could and should be. It’s all the same cosmic wanderings of a wayward probe, but it’s snappier, more confident, and all around more listenable, while losing none of the signature fuzzy guitar tone.
7 – Dampf – No Angels Alive
Third year in a row. Third year in a row that some electronic artist cracks my year end album list, by crossing over and blurring the line into metal. Now, I’m giving myself a little grace here, because this is the second time that the artist has been Dampf, which means this is more than just a coincidence. Dampf may not write the most technically challenging metal, but there is no question that there’s an understanding of what goes into composing a catchy hit. There’s something about these songs that hooks you immediately.
6 – Powerwolf – Wake Up the Wicked
Color me a little surprised. I’ve long been a Powerwolf partisan, but I freely admit that the band had a long run of making a great album followed by a mediocre one. So imagine my shock when this album comes out comparatively on the heels of last year's “Interludium,” and still bangs with a new bunch of massive songs that only Powerwolf could have written.
5 – Powerman 5000 – Abandon Ship
Am I the only person in the world who has this as a top five album from 2024? Probably. And is some of that no doubt because of my personal nostalgia? Possibly. But this is my list, so tough rocks. I’m just going to come out and say it – PM5K will never again be the band that wrote “Tonight the Stars Revolt!” That age has passed. But they also don’t have to be that band again. After however many years wandering in the desert, the comeback that seemingly began with “Builders of the Future” some ten years ago is real and tangible and authentic. And this album is a ton of fun.
4 – Dead Poet Society – Fission
One of the most unique bands going. Minimalist beats, heavy rhythms, guitar tone not heard since Soundgarden’s “4th of July”…this is a heady mix of styles and colors, and it takes a steady hand to be able to balance all of those into music that’s even listenable, let alone good. Extra props for “Hurt,” which is probably my Song of the Year…as someone who is also in a non-traditional career (yes, I have a job, and no, it’s not writing about music,) that tune hits close to home sometimes.
**It merits mention, there’s a gap here. These albums are all great, but the next three were on a level all their own in 2024.**
3 – Transit Method – Othervoid
The sensibilities of Rush, but paired with the beats and rhythms of a punk band? Hell yeah, sign me up for all of that. It’s not every year that a band new to me crosses my (virtual) desk and absolutely pins my attention to the wall until I’ve heard the whole thing. Can’t even remember who the last one would have been. The Hawkins? Red Eleven? Doesn’t matter. That’s how I felt listening to Transit Method. And I hope you do, too.
2 – The Warning – Keep Me Fed
Ugh, I went back and forth on this a hundred and fifty times. I even complained to my compatriot Chris about it. I haven’t had this much trouble deciding between two albums for #1 since 2014, when I battled internally for a week over Red Eleven’s “Round II” and Destrage’s “Are You Kidding Me? No.” (I picked Red Eleven then, and I stand by it…about half the time.) I can’t understand why the Warning haven’t conquered the world yet. The talent, the songs, the aesthetic…this band has everything you want in a world-wide hero rock group. It must only be the fallow period for rock fandom that we find ourselves in that prevents them from ascending. Although, every time I see them, it’s in a slightly larger venue…In the meantime, this is certainly the album I spent the most time with this year, but it did ultimately fall short to…
1 – Combichrist – CMBCRST
Some years ago, Combichrist took flak from their fans for gradually moving away from a pure industrial style, incorporating more and more metal elements. I personally think it’s the best decision the band ever made, as every album since that point (perhaps beginning with the DmC soundtrack?) has been better than the previous, culminating in this masterpiece of doom, gloom and as KMFDM coined the term, the ‘ultra-heavy beat.’ Some of the best riffs of the year were recorded for this album. What puts it ahead of The Warning at #2? The Warning, for all their greatness, worked with more professional songwriters. And as Chris has so passionately explained on our very pages, there’s no sin in that, none at all. But when you’re deciding between masterpieces, that extra little degree of authenticity for Combichrist matters.
One can only speculate at the difficulties of being a band that folds so many sounds into a single whole, and shoulders the boulder of fan expectation that is made more cumbersome by the multiple ridges and sharp points of that self-same rock.
There stands Combrichrist, an Atlas-ian figure in the industrial scene, who for much of the last decade and a half, have made moves toward accessibility in their music; an ideological shift away from the pure density of industrial that has drawn the expected amount of vacuous ire from the unwashed masses, usually couched in the stigmatic phrase “sold out.”
(Parenthetically, to accuse Combichrist of catering toward a popular audience is outrageously absurd – play their previous album “One Fire,” for your high school guidance counselor and see how it resonates.)
Even the most ardent of industrial purists, upon hearing Combichrist’s newest concoction, “CMBCRST,” should have no choice but to grudgingly admit that the entire paradigm shift they so reviled without cause may have been a learning experience. Without those steps, it is nigh impossible to consider that “CMBCRST” would exist in the same form, as this new, burning furnace of metal bends the iron of the band back toward their roots, without abandoning all the recent gains.
It feels shallow to simply compare Combichrist at this stage in their careers to tentpole names from the genre, but this record is truly Andy LaPlegua and company becoming the standard bearer for industrial by combining all the successful elements of their contemporaries, while imprinting their own idiomatic maker’s mark on the style. “CMBCRST” is a synthesis of all things KMFDM, Ministry, PAIN, Fear Factory, Nine Inch Nails and yes, Combichrist.
One need not get father than the album’s second cut, “D For Demonic,” to be reminded of the best ideas that “Nihil”-era KMFDM ever had, complete with, to steal that band’s phrase, the ‘ultra-heavy beat.’ The guitar is insistent and unyielding, the beat compelling and driving, accented with the kind of end licks, sampling and distortion that one would expect from Ministry. Through it all, LaPlegua’s characteristic growl moves the narrative and ties the song firmly to the bedrock of the band playing it, thus creating a separation from those other bands while simultaneously alloying them.
There’s more good stuff to come, but right after “D For Demonic” is where this record faces its only complication – there’s a stretch of about six straight forgettable tunes right in the middle of the record. The staccato digital piercing of “Only Death is Immortal” is an interesting concept, but fades into a generic chorus. “Northern Path” is a curious interplay of brooding melodrama and metal hammering, but “Bottle of Pain” from the previous album did the same thing better. And PAIN fans will note that the opening riff of “Through the Ravens Eyes” sounds an awful lot like the opening section of that band’s single “Call Me.” (Sidebar: PAIN has also released an album recently, and we’ll hopefully discuss that next week.)
And then, “Not My Enemy,” and everything that happens from this point forward on “CMBCRST” is, for lack of a more eloquent descriptor, awesome. Starting with “Not My Enemy,” the vocal cadence and phrasing of the building wave is catchy and uniquely constructed, never mind that the backbone of this song is a pure industrial beat of the highest order. It’s quite a feat to combine a true and authentic metal breakdown with a hammering digital beat, what sounds like a drunken Speak & Spell, and also find time by merely saying “all eyes on me” to invoke fine memories of Tupac, but here we are! There’s a lot of great stuff on “CMBCRST,” but this song is the crown jewel.
The album’s other single “Planet Doom” is novel for all the inspiration it takes from Italian horror soundtracks, combining that aesthetic with a gang chorus, a heavy-handed cymbal beat and a tempo that never allows the track to linger. The album closes with the punchy and anthemic “Violence Solves Everything” a fitting coda to an album that tries to prove that point for almost an hour.
“One Fire” was a great album, a metal coming-of-age for an industrial band that was completing an evolutionary arc. “CMBCRST” takes everything learned from that record, and indeed all the steps it took to get there, and synthesizes them into this new whole, using both the novel and familiar to create a record that, if perhaps a few cuts too long, still sets a high bar for any artist who aims to make a statement in the genre. It is a worthy achievement.
My statements at the head of this will be brief this year, because I think a lot of these albums speak for themselves. As usual, we begin with a recitation of the rules – original studio albums only. No compilations, no re-releases, no live albums, no cover albums. And, as ever, my list goes to 11.
I think I will say only this – I love and would defend all these records against naysayers of any stripe, but I find myself wishing that more bands I didn’t already know had made the final cut this year. I suppose it’s something that there are three or four bands who have never the cut of my top ten before, but that’s a small consolation. I’m fearful that the drought of new names is because I’m in my middle thirties and I’m subconsciously rejecting things are new and different. More optimistically, and this is what I’m telling myself, I’m hoping the lack of new bands is a signal of two things – one, that several resurgences and comebacks were truly, unequivocally excellent, and second, that maybe as Chris C and I discussed, it was a slightly down year.
In the end, there were sixteen finalists. To get the final roster down to the necessary eleven players (and one honorable mention,) four worthy albums got left in the lurch. I have commemorated them below, and I parenthetically feel a little bad for Toothgrinder, as both of their last two albums fell just short.
And so I leave you with this list, one man’s humble opinion of the musical year that was. Good luck and godspeed.
Others Receiving Votes:
Deathchant – Deathchant
Lord Vapour – Semuta
Death Angel – Humanicide
Toothgrinder – I Am
Honorable Mention - While She Sleeps - So What?
Every year there’s an album that populates my list because it simply overwhelms with power and reminds me of the heady days of my youth, when thunderous alt metal ruled the roost and Rob Zombie had spawned a legion of soundalikes and also-rans. That’s where While She Sleeps make their headway, and they’ve gone and combined it with a twist of layered songwriting to add some depth.
11 - A Pale Horse Named Death - When the World Becomes Undone
This album absolutely deserves to be here, but I feel a little torn about starting with it, only because it’s hard to get excited about the year’s records when the list starts with the most depressing one. Many of the bands born from the ashes of Type O Negative have failed to really hit home (Seventh Void and Silvertomb being two of them,) but APHND has something. They’re both the closest spiritual successor to Type O and the most adept at carrying the spark of that band’s infectious songwriting. The primary difference is that APNHD generally lacks Type O’s tongue in cheek humor, instead focusing on the darkness of a world gone mad. Cue up the slow dirges, it’s a long, enjoyable ride.
10 - John Garcia - John Garcia & The Band of Gold
Speaking of artists who have it, John Garcia has it. I admit I’m eating a little crow here – if you had asked me who the member of Kyuss was who was destined to succeed as a solo act, I don’t know that I would have picked John. But there’s something about his dry, slow-burning band that’s clean and pure and infectious. Who knows if Vista Chino will end up being a one-off or not, but in the meantime, John Garcia is capably carrying the torch for desert rock.
9 - Devil to Pay - Forever, Never or Whenever
Nothing is more frustrating than a band from the underground who isn’t getting nearly the publicity or exposure they deserve. Overseas, that band is Red Eleven and in the good old continental United States, it’s Devil to Pay. Darlings of the metal scene in the Midwest, these crusaders for sludge from Indianapolis have been putting out one killer album after another since 2004’s Thirty Pieces of Silver. Fifteen years later, they’ve lost none of their steam and can spin out a killer riff at a moment’s notice. Get on the bandwagon, already.
8 - Children of Bodom - Hexed
It’s weird to think of Children of Bodom as elder statesmen, but at this point that’s where we are. They’ve taken a lot of twists and turns in their sound over the years, and Hexed is the natural evolution of their sound into a whole new phase. It’s not easy to write accessible and catchy death metal, but they’re figured out the formula and are better off for it. The news that three core members of the band are departing in December comes as a shock – particularly amidst the persistent rumor that the band’s name may have to change as a result. If this be the end of Children of Bodom as we know it, it’s a fine effort to go out on.
7 - BRKN LOVE - BRKN LOVE
And finally, we get to a band making their debut this year. 2019 was light on new acts who truly impressed, but these Canadians can bring it. To some extent, this album feels like a long EP more than a true album, but it’s still groovy and dire and heavy in all the right places. BRKN LOVE wears all their influences in plain sight, and that’s just fine, because they’re drawing on great material. I don’t know that I’ve had this much fun being introduced to a new band in this stripe since Wolfmother.
6- John 5 & The Creatures - Invasion
John 5 should no longer just be known as the guitarist for Rob Zombie and former guitarist for Marilyn Manson. He’s a musician unto his own right now, and the fact that Zombie allows him time and space on stage to touch ever so slightly on his solo pieces is sufficient testament to that fact. What separates John 5 from every other guitar virtuoso is that, and this sounds facile even as I say it but it’s true, he’s writing actual songs and telling stories, not just showing how many arpeggios he can play in thirty seconds (though he leaves plenty of space for that, too.)
5 - Combichrist - One Fire
Nobody is happier about the recent Industrial Revolution than me. Suddenly the genre is undergoing a huge comeback, and the big beats, cranked gain and scorched sounds are welcome in my ears any time. Combichrist has taken a lot of turns to make their sound more metal and less abstractly industrial, and I dare say they get better with every album. One Fire is a great listen for when you’re mad at the world. Or working out. Or playing sports. Or doing dishes. Or whatever damn time you want to listen to it.
4 - Life of Agony - The Sound of Scars
I wrote in great detail during my full review of this album why I’m conflicted about it. I won’t rake you all over the details again, but know that it’s because I’m not sure if I love this album because of what it is, or because it represents something that used to be. In any event, I’m quite certain the fault, if there is one, is with me, and not with the album. There are piled of bands out there who have tried to ape this sound in the past twenty years and fallen completely on their faces in the process. As a result, the door is open for Life of Agony to come marching in and teach a master class on the subject.
3 - Indestructible Noise Command - Terrible Things
The comeback is complete! INC now has more albums post-hiatus than pre-hiatus, and they appear to be here to stay (do some touring already, would you?) This album is an old-school thrash masterpiece, brimming with attitude and big riffs and speedspeedspeed. The band got away from the Pantera sound that had colored their other two recent albums (which I use only as a recognizable standard – INC predates Pantera and the intertwined history of the two bands is well documented,) and returned to the pure core of thrash from which they were born, to great effect.
2 - Royal Republic - Club Majesty
This album is fucking magnificent. It’s probably the album on this list that I go back and listen to the most. It’s a delicious blend of disco, rock and pure sleaze, molded together over cheap cocktails and sardonic songwriting. There’s only one thing that keeps this record from the top spot, and it’s that you have to be in the right mood to listen to it. The album lives right on the edge between sassy, over-the-top rock excess and completely and totally annoying. It plays that line to perfection, but boy, if you come into it with the wrong state of mind…..but don’t get me wrong. This is album #2 for a reason.
1 - Destrage - The Chosen One
I feel bad about this only because some might think I’m starting to show favoritism. Including this one, Destrage’s last three albums have finished 1, 1 and 2 in my end of year rankings (and Are You Kidding Me? No. could still make a case for number 1 over Red Eleven’s Round II.) Like all Destrage albums, this one grew me on over time. When it released in May, I thought it was good, but not as strong as the prior two. And then it wore on me. And wore on me. And for reasons I couldn’t understand, I just kept going back to it over and over again. Slowly it became a constant companion on road trips and when travelling for work. So, it’s hard not to think that some of this placement is based on the luck of timing – if it had released in October, I don’t know that I would have had enough time with it. There’s something about this band, though – they write lyrics way past the margin, bend their idiom for riffs that barely make sense and reach outside the comfort zone of genre to craft huge choruses and songs that are too irresistible to be denied. The Chosen One does nothing but continue the band’s dominance.
While industrial music enjoys a small renaissance as we barrel through this century’s teen years, there remain a number of bands who can stand with pride and say ‘I’ve been here for a minute already.’ From stocked European tours to flashy live shows to over the top energy and even videogame soundtracks, Combichrist is positively veteran in the ranks of the resurgence. Striking while the iron is hot, they stand ready to drop a new full-length, “This is Where Death Begins” on the world and capitalize on their genre’s popularity.
Cutting to the highlight first, “Skullcrusher” is the reason to invest in this record (not a cover of Overkill’s “Skullkrusher, for those curious.) Not only is it a prime example of Combichrist’s ability to put the pedal down and keep the tempo up, but it features one of the great, no-nonsense singalong choruses in recent memory, full of the appropriate piss and vinegar and profanity that makes for a great singalong. For all that Combichrist does right on this record, and there’s a good bit of that, this is the shining jewel.
Critics of the band have long talked about the band being inconsistent, not being able to hold an accessible sound or channel their explosive energy into a consistently accessible and deliverable product. With years come experience, and for this new record Combichrist has refined their production into a baseline model that fans of both pure metal and industrial will recognize. “This is Where Death Begins” finds a groove and successfully maintains it, while still utilizing some of vocalist Andy LaPlegua’s versatility,
What likely comes as a surprise for many is that the artist who comes to mind most when discussing this album is actually Rob Zombie, surprisingly only because his name rarely comes up in these kind of discussions. Nevertheless, Zombie’s particular brand of fun, groove-heavy metal that was so pervasive toward the end of the last millennium is the major hallmark that we’re reminded of here. There is a solid thump to nearly every track, whether the charging run of “My Life My Rules” or the slow, chorus-based burn of “Glitchteeth”. In any event, the end result remains much the same – an album full of cuts that reminds of the sinister smile-inducing atmosphere of when metal was fun.
The only disappointment with “This is Where Death Begins” is that it’s perfectly by the numbers in terms of industrial metal. For a band that has spent their career making the grade by tearing off faces with aggressive, intense, super-produced live performances, this album fits nicely into an aggressive pocket but doesn’t overstep the bounds. Combichrist seems content to live in the space between the craft of early Nine Inch Nails and the undisciplined fury of Marilyn Manson, and while there’s no question that a market exists there and the band can properly fill that niche, it just seems like this record could have been more a little more.
So what we come away with is a record that doesn’t break new ground, but nevertheless holds its own in contrast against the recent industrial styling of Emigrate or Surgical Meth Machine. As ever, Combichrist remains their own band settled into their own idiom, and “This is Where Death Begins” does little to alter that. This is a good record, and a pleasant throwback to a more raw time in the genre.
