2023 is finally coming to an end, and as we say around here, every year continues to be worse than the last one. In 2023, the subject of Palestine was a big one, but most of you have already forgotten about the first time a Palestine was bombed in 2023. In February 2023, a Norfolk Southern operated train crashed and burned in the middle of East Palestine, Ohio, a town nobody had heard of before, and no one will since due to it being contaminated and blown off the map in the aftermath. If you’ve ever seen the show Preacher, the first season’s finale was a documentary of what happened to East Palestine. This industrial disaster is a fitting analogy worth naming our 2023 award after, in lieu of our usual parade of mass murderers, serial sexual predators or former members of Megadeth. A genre this year has contributed quite a lopsided amount of top finishers in this award ceremony, and it’s not the one you’d think. Industrial is a genre that has always been doing its’ own thing in the background over the years, a lot of its progenitors continue to perform and tour and have been doing their thing for decades to varying degrees of reception, some are near infallible and others release the same song 10 times in a row every few years and call it a career. In 2023 however, industrial has become sort of lumped in with the ominously ongoing, never ending nu-metal revival infatuation. Again. Way back in the 90’s, bands like Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Godflesh and KMFDM were often cited as inspirations by newer bands with nu-tendencies, and groups such as Filter, Fear Factory, Marilyn Manson and White Zombie stood on the tenuous border between “industrial rock”, “alternative metal” and “nu-metal” or whatever you’d argue they fell under. My point is that here in 2023, we have a lot of radioactive waste contaminated industrial rock seeping up from Chernobyl’s grave for some reason. Everyone is trying industrial rock again like it’s 1995 out here, please stop. It’s so bad that Ministry released a new single, “Goddamn White Trash”, which was more like “Goddamn This Sucks” and it narrowly avoided the top 5. Be very thankful there wasn’t any new Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson or KMFDM in 2023 because I’m sure they’d also be in the running based on this genre’s diminishing returns lately. Oh and Stabbing Westward are back, yawn. On the other hand, Godflesh released one of the greatest albums of the entire year and HEALTH’s latest “Rat Wars” features a heavily industrial approach done well in a year full of ecosystem destroying toxic industrial disasters. These songs are like being doomed to living on a superfund site, drinking and breathing cancer every day until you die of hyperthyroidism in 10 years, in the post industrial apocalypse of East Palestine, Ohio. As mass murderer Ted “The Unabomber” Kaczyinski once put it, “the industrial revolution and its’ consequences have been a disaster for the human race”, and so have the following musical machinations of destruction.
(Tie) 5. The Mars Volta – Que Dios te maldiga mi corazon (all 14 tracks)
It would have been far too easy to be lazy and hand The Mars Volta back to back #1 award winning ties for their entire album, because The Mars Volta have practically cheated by releasing the exact same album again for some reason. When their self titled comeback record won last year’s Deshaun Watson Award for Song Most Likely to Molest Over 22 Masseuses, it was basically a giveaway. Maybe even The Mars Volta were feeling the icy reception to their drastic change in sound, because now in 2023 we have that album re-recorded in what is essentially an unplugged setting. So the songs are still thankfully short, only now instead of drum machines and synthesizers making all the music, we get flamenco guitars and maracas instead. Oh yay. It sounds as if The Mars Volta have traded in huffing jenkem in a trap house and composing “Day of the Baphomets” for a middle aged easy listening career on the yacht, sipping rum and margaritas and laughing at their fans for buying the same terrible album all over again. Turns out making the tropical getaway campfire singalong version does not make a terrible album any better. This probably should have been higher, but it’s just way too easy to hand The Mars Volta an award for this as long as they are ever releasing new music, their potential for hilarity and dysfunction knows no bounds. Keep Danny Masterson locked up in Korn County prison until the second coming of Xenu while you’re at it, you deserve that victory after releasing one of the worst albums of all time a second time.
4. Bring Me the Horizon featuring Lil’ Uzi Vert and Glassjaw – “AmEN!”
Okay I know what you’re thinking, what the fuck did I just listen to and why the fuck was this band never even mentioned before? Bring Me the Horizon have been a prime candidate for years at this point, having been bad since the very beginning when I was in high school. They’re one of the worst screamo mallcore bands ever. Unfortunately, they’ve also seen baffling reappraisal over the years, having being considered one of the biggest metal bands on the planet for years at this point, and their genre experimentations seem to go unquestioned despite a lot of disparity between them. What a world we fucking live in where this is the most recognized band to any casuals reading this article so far, good luck. Anyway, this song is being mentioned here for one reason, and that is the glaring inclusion of Glassjaw. Glassjaw have long been antagonists to their own well being, currently embarking on a 30th anniversary tour despite releasing their debut album in 2000. They went 15 years between proper album releases, opting instead to do things like release their first new material in over half a decade at a random pizza shop in New Jersey, demanding fans call in at 1:11 PM and order the Glassjaw special instead of you know, putting out a new album normally. Material Control is over 6 years ago at this point, so the newest thing bearing the Glassjaw name that isn’t an overpriced, obscurely released box set of vinyl records with an ugly neon colored rain parka is this. It’s also the only “hit single” Glassjaw has ever been remotely associated with. As far as I can tell, this might be a throwback to the screamo mallcore glory days for Bring Me the Horizon, unfitting as hell rap verse from Lil’ Uzi Vert aside, but apparently this sort of disjointed and unpalatable amalgamation of displeasing sound vomit passes as critically acclaimed these days. That’s the sad state of affairs we live in, this song is generally considered good. Lil’ Uzi Vert’s one actual hit from over half a decade ago and Glassjaw’s proto incel rant demos from the late 90’s were better than this even. Bring Me the Horizon was terrible when I was a teenager and in the prime demographic for their sort of music, if I thought it was bad then, of fucking course I think it’s even worse now. Apparently this is considered “industrial” along with “nu-metal revival”, “metalcore”, “post-hardcore”, “99 cent discount bin at Hot Topic in 2008 core” and whatever other names we’re gonna make up along the way tonight to describe these consequences of the industrial revolution. I don’t see how this is anything but a bottoming out moment of all time for both Lil’ Uzi Vert and Daryl Palumbo, Gen Z mallcore and nu-metal enthusiasts be damned, the worst Head Automatica song was better than this fucking thing. I am however also confident in saying this is not the worst Bring Me the Horizon song of all time, I sure hope I never do hear their worst song if this is amongst their “best”.
3. Static-X – “Terrible Lie” (Nine Inch Nails cover)
We were bound to hit the obligatory bad cover song of the year at some point, what we weren’t expecting was for it to be from a band associated with someone who died nearly a decade ago. The case of Static-X these days is strange to say the least, Wayne Static died in 2014 and then the remaining members of the original lineup reunited in 2019 to play a Wisconsin Death Trip 20th anniversary tour with Edsel Dope assuming a caricature of Wayne of sorts called Xero. It’s odd, and not really something that I’d go see live despite being offered so twice, most recently the 2024 tour with Sevendust, and I generally consider Static-X to be among the good bands spawned from the original nu-metal meets industrial revolution bastardization byproduct era of the 90’s. Wisconsin Death Trip and Machine were fantastic, but the rest of their career consisted of rapidly diminishing returns and ongoing disputes between band members until Wayne died. They released one album with unreleased Wayne vocal parts in 2020, and have perpetually delayed the second and final installment until 2024, but the first song released was this cover, and I am not so impressed. Either the band happened to record themselves covering this on a whim as a joke way back in the day and isolated some of those vocal parts and blended them in with Edsel Dope parts, or this was an industrial band going full AI generated in the holy digital spirits of Mechanical Animals and Pretty Hate Machines before them. That’s not a compliment though, those were great records. A second posthumous Static-X record comprised of Wayne throwaways, Dope singer edgelordisms and AI generated filler sounds about as inspired as this tired retread through an industrial classic, an obligation despite an obvious structural defect. Static-X truly were a momentous and memorable band of their era, they had legit bangers and a unique style, but their namesake died years ago and the rest of them trying to drag the corpse along with a lesser band’s main guy cosplaying just feels weird as shit at this point. Dope themselves released a new album this year, Blood Money Part 0, the sequel to a 2016 album, and it only didn’t get ranked because why the hell would I even hear a new Dope song in 2023. I ask myself the same thing about Static-X, they at least are classier than Pantera at the bare minimum these days regarding this whole “reunion”, and their comeback is certainly more authentic than Fear Factory’s by featuring more than one original member, but at the same time it feels like the corpse with the Slim Jim mascot haircut should be laid to rest already.
2. Filter – “Command Z”
In 2022, Richard Patrick had what was easily the biggest moment in his career in decades when he finally squashed the beef and got onstage with Nine Inch Nails for the first time since 1993. What was truly mindblowing was the performance of “Hey Man Nice Shot”, Filter’s 1995 debut hit single that earned him a spot of his own in the pantheon of industrial along with the vintage survivors of the NIN crew. That was a truly historic moment I witnessed in person, it was roughly equivalent to Dave Mustaine joining Metallica in a friendly rendition of “Peace Sells” or John 5 and Manson getting together to play “The Dope Show” again, or White Zombie doing anything ever, it was never even on the bingo board and it’ll never happen again, it was a privilege and as rare as a Rage Against the Machine concert. Richard Patrick also rocked the house at the tiny nu-metal and metalcore friendly club down the street from my apartment in Kent that one time years ago with Filter I saw, he’s a friend of the blog, great guy to meet in person, not a bad thing to say about him at all.
That aside, I don’t know if I’ve heard a single song from Filter ever as bad as “Command Z”, the album closer from Filter’s 2023 album The Algorithm. I admit that over the years I’ve stopped really paying attention to Filter, the last song of theirs I remember listening to upon debut was 2010’s “The Inevitable Relapse”, a song featuring purposely and blatantly obnoxious autotune and a chorus of “Drinking, drinking, snorting, smoking” finally not in autotune. They were being intentionally stupid then, and now in 2023 I can’t help but feel the same when I listen to “Command Z”. It’s another horrible Imagine Dragons styled electronic pop song totally devoid of any element of rock, barely anything industrial either even when compared to airy Filter pop industrial classics like “Take a Picture” or “Where Do We Go From Here?”, which all leads up to a autotuned to hell chorus about being high as fuck. Richard Patrick has been pretty outspoken about being sober for over 20 years at this point, so continuing to make autotune driven songs about getting high as fuck as your comeback moments baffles me. I would have never even heard this if it weren’t suggested to me as a specifically terrible moment from a tangentially relevant musician to the blog, this wasn’t popular at all thankfully, but even in it’s relative obscurity, this is just awe despairingly terrible. If there was any time for Filter to come back and put their best forward it was now, but instead The Algorithm as a whole mostly languishes in nondescript generic butt rocking mode, with the only distraction being the hilarity of something otherworldly terrible like “Command Z”. I’m high as fuck and I think this was terrible, you’re sober and pretending to be high as fuck, next time do better.
1. Code Orange featuring Billy Corgan – “Take Shape”, produced by Steve Albini
If there weren’t ever a trio of artists waiting to be shit upon handed over on a silver platter, I don’t know what other example there could ever possibly be.
I suppose we can start with Code Orange. Back when they were Code Orange Kids, they frequently opened metal shows in Cleveland, and only continued to prosper as they transitioned into the more seriously taken Code Orange. I Am King and Forever were welcomed with praise, I genuinely like these albums and think they were taking their brand of midwest metalcore to bold new places in this era, their opener slots for Gojira and Every Time I Die when I saw them live in the 2010’s were incredible sets and I was nothing but supportive of this band. They got big, charted on Billboard and garnered Grammy nominations, they had truly made it the uncompromising way. All the way until they released “The Hunt” featuring Corey Taylor of Slipknot. And then “Only One Way”. And further down the rapidly depleting spiral of industrial nu-metal revival regurgitating rabbit hole did this band go down. The band’s ascent was truly was shot dead in it’s tracks by releasing their Underneath album on March 13, 2020, the week covid lockdowns began. What didn’t help was the band’s transition to full on nu-metal revival and industrial rock of decades past tribute band posturing. Underneath sounds like Powerman 5000, Spineshank, Pitchshifter and other lesser industrial-nu blender bands of that era done worse again at best, and Linkin Park and Slipknot clout chasing attempts at mainstream butt rock radio stardom at worst. Code Orange had given up the hard shit for nu-metal revival infamy from here on out. “Out for Blood” needs no mention and neither does anything Billy Corgan’s done lately. If you really wanted a recap, here’s my 6,000 word article clowning on Bi Corg’s entire career since 1998 up through 2018, he’s a punching bag staple on our site. Smashing Pumpkins finally booted Asian correspondent Jeff Schroder recently after realizing James Iha has been back for nearly a decade now, good for them I guess.
Steve Albini though, now he deserves a mention of his own for just how ridiculous this guy has been over the years. I don’t think I’ve ever been afforded to throw shade at someone as prolific, critically adored and edgelord-ish as he since I last threw shade at Steven Wilson, so he’s of course going to get a paragraph of lambasting. Steve Albini has simply put produced some of the best and worst music of all time ever. He produced In Utero by Nirvana and Blessed Black Wings by High on Fire, he also produced Razorblade Suitcase by Bush and Point Number 1 by Chevelle. Big Black were one of the most influential noise rock bands of their era and songs like “Passing Complexion” and “Kerosene” were early pioneers of industrial rock, but Rapeman were one of the most controversial of their era simply because of their dumb name. That’s not even getting into his single most edgelording amateur hour moment from early on, I can’t even say their band and song title without being blacklisted by mainstream social media, holy shit they used all the slurs on that one. But even that song was probably better than “Take Shape”, it was just more outright offensive in regards to racism and homophobia instead of regarding the music itself. That is where “Take Shape” really excels is it’s aggressively terrible music and vocals. Literally every band they are pretending to be did it better already; Korn, Slipknot, Rob Zombie, Rammstein, KMFDM, Static-X, Filter, Marilyn Manson, Ministry, Fear Factory, Spineshank, every band that rose to prominence from the industrial metal scene did so with much better attention to sonic detail, better vocal performances, better pairings of electronic and digital elements with electric guitars and drums, all of those bands would have never succeeded at making meldings of hardcore and industrial ala I Am King or Forever either mind you, but when they made straight on industrial rock bangers for the masses they brought their A games. Code Orange brings their F- game and puke over a scratched burned CD of Linkin Park’s Reanimation that they downloaded off of Limewire in 2002 and call it a day. I’m sure the album gets even worse than this if I could be bothered to take a deeper dive, but I don’t want to. I am perfectly fine without bathing myself in the contaminated waters of Lake Code Orange, it glows orange because of the radioactive waste, just like the rivers do in Pittsburgh.
So anyway eventually Billy sings a line all nasally and disjointed like, and then the most generic predictable metalcore breakdown of all time happens. That’s how the song concludes. I knew this review was going to be more dedicated to making fun of everyone moreso than making fun of the song itself, but it’s by far the most generic and nondescript song yet of a band that’s fallen down the trap of making Sirius XM radio metal while they alternate between opening for Korn, Slipknot or Lamb of God every summer for the foreseeable future. Code Orange was once a great band, they were on fire live when I saw them back in the day, now you couldn’t even convince me to see them for free unless they promised not to play anything released after “Forever”. “Back in the day” came way too fucking soon for this band and their trajectory has been nothing but a major disappointment, and that’s always worse than the baseline of “The Mars Volta still sucks”, “Smashing Pumpkins still sucks” or “Weezer still sucks”. Squandered potential sucks more than perpetual disappointment with the occasional unintentional humor, and that is why Code Orange win the flaming trainwreck award of 2023. They won the award named after an industrial disaster that polluted the waters of their native Pittsburgh, how fitting. Billy Corgan and Steve Albini on the other hand are just legendary douchebags worthy of any sort of shit fit being flung in their general directions, they are always fair game and will remain so until the ground waters of Palestine, Ohio are pure again. That’s to say, never. I highly doubt Code Orange, Billy Corgan or Steve Albini will ever be involved in the creation of another good piece of music in any sense again, they are doomed to coasting on their pasts, like the rustbelt itself they hail from.
At this point, Trent Reznor and Justin Broadrick would be doing a public service by forcing industrial artists to pass a “you must be this consistent” gatekeeping check before any of the bands in this genre are allowed to continue releasing music. How the fuck did it get this bad? Industrial rock in 2023 has truly become the dumping ground for all of the toxic chemical cleanups underway in the post industrial Fallout world we inhabit. I sold the rest of the empty space on this website to a C. Montgomery Burns for the expressed purpose of dumping more radioactive waste, have fun with cleaning that mess up bitches.
VS. MusicK 