Music Review: Combichrist - What The F**ck Is Wrong With You People

With the March 6 release of What the Fuck is Wrong With You People, Metropolis Records recording artist, Combichrist, continues their fast-track ascension to the throne of industrial dance music. Along the way, the band is redefining the genre inventing a wholly new style - Techno Body Music (TBM).

Combichrist is just one in a line of Icon of Coil lead singer, Andy LaPlegua’s many side projects. Unlike Panzer Ag, another LePlegua side project, Combichrist blends more techno elements into their harsh, grinding sound – the beats pulse more, the breaks are those found more commonly in a techno mix.

With the success of the last few years, Combichrist is devouring more and more of LaPlague’s time; the band’s “Get Your Body Beat (also on this album) was featured in the underground sci-fi thriller, The Gene Generation, a ridiculously successful North American tour with Industrial heavy weights, KMFDM increased their ever-growing army, and their 2004 EP, Sex, Drogen Und Industrial spent seven weeks at number one on the German Alternative Charts.

So how does this release stack up with the rest of Combichrist’s work? Easily, this is the bands best work to date.

What the Fuck is Wrong With You People starts with what must have been an unnerving situation for someone – a recorded conversation confronting a stalker whose apparently gotten someone’s cell number and bombed it with lewd text messages. Needless to say, the female voice making the confrontation is none to happy about the situation, she's pissed and she is letting someone know in no uncertain terms. This is immediately and appropriately followed with the title track which is sure to become a dance club smash as well as rivethead anthem. Seems LaPlegua is fond of anthems as, without loosing a beat, we are next ushered into the anthematic “Electroheads.” I say rivethead, you say electrohead, I say tomato, you say tomautoe.

Article Author: Benjamin Cossel

A working journalist, Benjamin currently serves as a combat photojournalist and is the managing editor of a weekly newspaper in southeastern Wyoming. He’s worked as a reporter in Ohio, Arizona and done several deployments in the military crossing the globe. …

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