photo by Johnny Bohlen
Industrial metal unit BLACK MAGNET will release its debut LP, Hallucination Scene, this Friday through 20 Buck Spin, who is now streaming the entire album in its entirety.
With all vocals, guitars, synthesizers, drum programming, and samples written and performed by BLACK MAGNET‘s sole member James Hammontree, Hallucination Scene was recorded at Decade Studio in Chicago, Illinois by Sanford Parker (EyeHateGod, Darkthrone, Spirit Adrift), mixed by Parker at the Hypercube, mastered by Collin Jordan at Boiler Room, and completed with cover imagery by James Ventura. The sonic magnitude of industrial metal and post-punk muscularity, heavy synth textures, and rhythmic militance imbue BLACK MAGNET’s Hallucination Scene with a frenetic pulse acutely attuned to the head on collision of alternate dystopian timelines that is 2020. Fans of Godflesh, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Front Line Assembly, Pitch Shifter, and Killing Joke must hear Hallucination Scene.
Hammontree writes with the album’s advance stream, “Hallucination Scene was recorded in April of 2020 in Chicago, during the worst time in my life in the worst circumstances possible. All instruments and vocals were performed by me and the album was engineered by Sanford Parker. I funded the project myself and had no idea what was going to come of it. There were no fans, no hype, no support, and no fate. The only inspiration I had was getting out of the situation I was currently in. The album was recorded in four days and closed a chapter of my life I am glad is over; the end result is Hallucination Scene, but it is only just the beginning.”
Hear BLACK MAGNET’s Hallucination Scene in its entirety at THIS LOCATION.
20 Buck Spin will release Hallucination Scene September 4th on LP, CD, and all digital formats.
Find preorders at the label webshop HERE and Bandcamp HERE.
While birthed in the late 1980s, it was in the 1990s that the “industrial metal” genre came to full fruition with the likes of Godflesh, Ministry, Pitch Shifter, Fear Factory, Front Line Assembly, and even Nine Inch Nails carving out (or in some cases sampling) metal inspired riffing over a backbone of electronic malevolence and brutal machine driven percussion. In that tradition, BLACK MAGNET offers the haunted pummeling synthesis that is their debut album, Hallucination Scene.
From the initial battering of opener “Divination Equipment,” it is clear BLACK MAGNET plays heavy guitar focused music with equal devotion to industrial rhythms and electronic machine thunder. Throughout the punishing lurch a dark melodic sense throbs with uniform attention paid to the club floor as much as the mosh pit. All the while BLACK MAGNET progenitor James Hammontree guides the hallucinatory torment and ecstasy with his acerbic delivery. Live, Hammontree is joined by a full lineup. BLACK MAGNET is prepared to tour heavily if the current biblical plague ever ends.
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