Leftist Industrial Bands

[JTC]

Are there any good Leftist Industrial bands? (talking mostly "classic" industrial or neo-folk industrial, i.e. Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Laibach, etc). I know many industrial bands focus on simply parodying fascism but I haven't really found any explicit Leftist bands.

[Rafiq]

Rome - despite what you might think. They're self admitted left anarchists.

[Sasha]

ehm? almost all off them? kmfdm, ministry, einsturzende nuebauten, DAF, SPK, test dept swans

[JTC]

I'm not so sure about KMFDM, they come off a little reactionary to me for some reason. Ministry I consider to be more straightaway industrial metal headbanging fun than any overtly political lyrics. Einsturzende Neubauten? What leftist songs have they done? SPK I agree with. Not familiar with the rest really.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Skinny Puppy was left-wing, I think, although I can't remember if their music was explicitly leftist.

[Sasha]

not a classic industrial band but nailbomb (max cavalera) was obviously pretty political.

and ministry is pretty overtly political, and at least their album "house of the mole" is too lyrically.

[Creative Destruction]

Ministry I consider to be more straightaway industrial metal headbanging fun than any overtly political lyrics..

what? they made at least two entire albums with nothing but political songs. Al Jourgensen will talk about politics at anyone who lets him. i don't know if he's a radical or anything, but he's definitely left-of-center, at least.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

KMFDM is my personal favorite. Not all of their stuff is political, but when it is they aren't terrible subtle about it. Their album Kunst was basically one giant 'FUCK YOU!' to the reactionary forces of the Russian fascists and the Orthodox Church.

Plus, I love Aidan "Brute!" Hughes' cover art for their albums. Its like a combination of Jack Kirby and Socialist Realist propaganda posters.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I like KMFDM's album artwork, as well. One of the first pieces of music I ever bought was KMFDM's "Money/Bargeld", which was being sold on sale for a dollar or something.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f0/Kmfdmmoney.jpg/220px-Kmfdmmoney.jpg

[slum]

re: skinny puppy,most of what could be classified as political with them was animal lib/anti testing or green stuff: testure, inquisition, human disease etc

there's also tin omen (about tienanmen sq) and VX gas attack (iran-iraq war)

idk if they got more explicitly leftist later on i like to pretend nothing after last rights exists

[Palmares]

From another forum:


I was at a KMFDM concert, just 3 days ago(Fenix Underground, Seattle...it was intense), and during a period of technical difficulties Sascha was asking if the audience had anything to say into the mic. One guy yelled "Seig Heil!" and Sascha KICKED him in the face multiple times, and told him to get the frag out and called him a -comment removed- and had him kicked out of the venue. I hate this shit about KMFDM being a "skinhead" and "NAZI" band...nothing could be further from the truth. They are truly a progressive band.

[The Disillusionist]

This is right up my alley, though my preference is industrial metal. The ones I know of that haven't yet been listed are: Circus of Dead Squirrels, Killing Joke, God Bullies (Very leftist, very political, very noisy. One of my favorites), Thrall (offshoot of the God Bullies, also excellent), Fear Factory, Godflesh (not overtly political, but it's there), and Lard (a crossover project between Ministry and Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedies, so obviously they're very political and very leftist).

Then finally there's the Swans, who are not metal but are still of the most intense bands in this list, especially during their early years. A lot of their stuff isn't overly political, but check out the "Cop" album.

If we were talking about plain old metal I could name a few more.

[Dave]

I really like Industrial music. My advice is to just enjoy the music, regardless of which wing or 'ism the band is supposedly on. I've been to Wave Gotik Treffen and the Amphi Festival and Gothic meets Klassik in Germany and really enjoyed them. Two of my favourite bands are VNV Nation and Rotersand. Rotersand tend to raise the issue of mass surveillance and warrantless wiretapping in their music. I remember reading in an interview of Ronan Harris of VNV Nation we're better off without political wings or isms because they only artificially divide people who could be friends. On the cover of VNV's Matter + Form album it contains the alchemical symbols for Mercury and Sulphur (two incompatible elements) with the VNV logo in between. Take what you want it to mean, Mercury and Sulphur could refer to science and religion, it could also refer to incompatible elements of the political spectrum being brought together.

[The Intransigent Faction]

KMFDM is fucking amazing. Been into them since high school. Well, at least up to Hau Ruck. Between "Stray Bullet" which quotes "God and the State", "Free Your Hate" which is about the Days of Rage, "Glory", and others, they're anything but reactionary.

I've known liberals or reactionaries who like them just for their musical style, but the whole "Nazi" thing came about due to their association with the moral panic around the Columbine massacre. Studying Columbine was actually how I first heard of them, and how I realized how wrongly portrayed they were when I went to find out for myself what all panic was about.

Anyway yeah, industrial bands in general tend to have leftist themes.

YBxYpOEoLcM

[Os Cangaceiros]

^ that one Finnish (IIRC?) school shooter wingnut who fancied himself to be a Nietzschean "ubermensche" was also a KMFDM fan, supposedly.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

BEATNIGS

Here is some non-capitalized text so that the first bit will remain appropriately all caps.

[The Intransigent Faction]

^ that one Finnish (IIRC?) school shooter wingnut who fancied himself to be a Nietzschean "ubermensche" was also a KMFDM fan, supposedly.

Yeah, in Jokela. He posted a video with the same song that Eric Harris posted the lyrics to, "Son of a Gun".

[Dave]

On a side note I've noticed from VNV Nation's "Advance and Follow" albumn they have references to the Free State of Fiume and its constitution. I find this quite fascinating to read about, it seems quite agreeable to both communists and fascists as well as freethinkers outside of any dogma (like myself). The Free State of Fiume was first recognized by the Soviet Union, and one of its founders, Gabriele D'Annunzio was identified by Vladmir Lenin as the one man who could start a revolution in Italy.

The song Requiem QCN by VNV Nation reads the preamble to the constitution of Fiume.

Please read about the Constitution of Fiume, Gabriele D'Annunzio and the Charter of Carnaro and tell me what you think? They seem to be heavily influenced by communism and probably by secret illuminist societies. Fiume placed high emphasis on music as a cultural value and artistic endeavour.

[Viktor89]

Kmfdm are anarchist-communists, a very revolutionary band, Rome are socialists, red anarchists, (musically they belong in the neofolk genre though), Wumpscut has a cd full of communist symbols, Feindflug use often anti-swastika symbol and cd title in russian, DAF is strongly antifa. There's a lot more.

[Viktor89]

On a side note I've noticed from VNV Nation's "Advance and Follow" albumn they have references to the Free State of Fiume and its constitution. I find this quite fascinating to read about, it seems quite agreeable to both communists and fascists as well as freethinkers outside of any dogma (like myself). The Free State of Fiume was first recognized by the Soviet Union, and one of its founders, Gabriele D'Annunzio was identified by Vladmir Lenin as the one man who could start a revolution in Italy.

The song Requiem QCN by VNV Nation reads the preamble to the constitution of Fiume.

Please read about the Constitution of Fiume, Gabriele D'Annunzio and the Charter of Carnaro and tell me what you think? They seem to be heavily influenced by communism and probably by secret illuminist societies. Fiume placed high emphasis on music as a cultural value and artistic endeavour.

d'Annunzio was not a fascist, no, but neither a socialist or anarchist. I did read something about women getting rights and so in Fiume but d'Annunzio, was he not one of those futurists and a militant nationalist? Look at the reasons why he took Fiume.

[punk cat]

Lard, Lung, Ambassador 21, Franz de Vaard, Animal Machine, Elizabeth Veldon, PBK...