Church of Industrial Music: Chemlab - Burn Out At The Hydrogen Bar

I first heard Chemlab on the 2nd edition of Cleopatra Records' Industrial Revolution compilation, which featured "Codiene, Glue and You", among other great tracks. Back before the internet, compilations were a great way to check out bands you hadn't heard, and that was one of the first I got my hands on after getting into this stuff. It would inform several of my early industrial purchases, this among them. Of course, it became an instant favorite.

I didn't realize it at the time (though I would a bit later, as I got more into this music), but I was getting into industrial music at an interesting time for a person of my tastes. While I was far from being there at the beginning, I did manage to catch the rise of this coldwave thing, of which Chemlab were a major part. This album was part of my introduction to that little slice of industrial history, and remains one of my favorites of the era.

Listen to Burn Out... on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/420IN1wqFVZXBHxkxQatGj

This is another one that's chock full of great tracks, though I most often find myself coming back to "Suicide Jag", "Rivet Head", and "Summer of Hate". I think this album remains one of the finest examples of this kind of music. It may not be among the heaviest "guitar industrial" (though there are some pretty heavy moments), but it is certainly high-energy and intense, maybe in more of a punk-rock way. To me, it's pretty much the perfect blend of synths, guitars, and samples (both as instruments/fx and speech samples). This is also one of my favorite examples of this kind of music with minimally-processed, non-growled vocals. For this reason, I think it might also be one of the most accessible albums I've talked about here so far, even though it never became as popular in mainstream circles as Ministry did. I suspect that has more to do with marketing than anything else. I think most industrial fans would agree with me in preferring this one, though.

Of all of the albums that I've written about in these articles so far, only Skinny Puppy's Too Dark Park can compete with this one in terms of my continued listening. If you aren't familiar with the coldwave scene of 90's industrial, this is definitely a classic to check out.