Electropunk or the genre that wasn't - Part 1

There are a few genres dear to my heart but I'm mainly into hardcore, punk, goth and industrial. What fascinates me the most is the intersection of all of the above.

Very rarely do you see hardcore or punk bands with synthesizers and conversely, while there are often elements of punk in modern industrial (Combichrist and BILE spring to mind) they lack a certain raw emotion. It's difficult for me to put into words but as an exemplar, compare this Modern Life is War (hardcore formerly of Iowa) track with the following ohGr track (Canadian Industrial).

Modern Life is War - D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S.

vs.

ohGr - Majik


There are some similarities certainly but anyone can concede that they're vastly different genres of music. So what about the rare occasions where the two collide?

The most famous example is most likely Mindless Self Indulgence. Popular with the hot-topic crowd and "true" industrial fans, MSI have been mining the punk/goth/industrial cross-over for slightly more than a decade (since '97 to be precise).

Mindless Self Indulgence - Shut Me Up (Directed by Jhonen Vasquez of Invader Zim fame)



It's got the droning 3 chord guitars of punk with the charged bass and electronics of industrial but more importantly, they have all the spite and vitriol of a punk band. Interested yet? MSI is a gateway drug for a lot of teens into industrial but honestly, I think they're much closer to punk.

Heading in another direction entirely, Sex Positions, the short lived Boston band that managed to fuse furious hardcore riffs with elements of glitch and broken IDM. Taking a far more minimal approach they used their electronic elements to bolster and compliment the more traditional hardcore sound. Really really wish these guys were still around and putting out music. Check them out on Deathwish if you dig.

Sex Positions - Commit It



Going in another direction and letting the electronic elements take the fore, XO Skeletons. Featuring members of numerous well known US hardcore bands, they manage to fuse the atmosphere of modern electro with post-hardcore. Still has some of my all time favourite lyrics - "I read the bible and I understand, I was bored by heaven and the holy land"



Everything so far has been coming out of the USA but the UK is somewhat represented. Cutting Pink with Knives were a London based "electro-grind" band in the mid-2000s. Their albums show a pretty distinct progression from a more grind based sound to a less harsh (although not that much) post-hardcore meets electro sounds. The song below is probably their mellowest track;



Notoriously hard to track down, A Trillion Barnacle Lapse formed, toured and put out a few records between 1999 and 2006. More similar to Sex Positions but taking a lot of cues from 80s pop and the heroin infused screamo of the early 90s, they never became particularly huge (much to my grand disappointment). This live track really doesn't do their recorded material justice.



If you've liked any of this then definitely check out:
Genghis Tron, Melt Banana, Gonin-Ish, Bright Calm Blue, The Epoxies, The Faint, Trencher, Infidel? Castro!, Pop. 1280, Fullmoon Bongzai.

I'm going to attempt to continue this in a second part soon.