It's been bloody cold recently. "Baltic", some might say. And what's on the other side of the Baltic Sea (assuming you live in, idk, Estonia)? Scandinavia, that's what, although as an insufferable pedant n0teeth feels obliged to point out that the following poke around a regional scene includes two countries that technically aren't Scandinavian (correctly identify both and you could win a copy of Olof Palme's execution order signed by the former head of South Africa's security services).
As a region, "Fennoscandia Plus" seems to churn out a not-inconsiderable percentage of the world's worst cyber metal bands, all of whom ought to be dumped over the Finnish-Russian border like so much unwanted furniture, but if you peek past the piles of prancing plastic haired pissants you may catch a lucky squint at the dark and dirty underbelly of a thriving & writhing industrial scene that easily rivals Central Europe's or North America's.
Reptilicus are a pair of miserable Icelandic fucks
whose harsh and frequently rhythmic take on dark ambient will
have you munching fermented shark while you swipe past your
vitamin D deficient cousins on the dating apps. Their
aptly-named 1990 debut Crusher of Bones meshes
Hunting Lodge-style bass abuse with juddering drum tracks and rancid
bursts of synthesised noise. And really, you need to enjoy at
least two of those things to make any sense of this blog.
Also try dancing a vikivaki to:
H Catalyst
and the shameless rivet-bait that was Iceland's
Eurovision 2019 entry.
Bocksholm's utterly delightful backstory is that two
chaps by the name of Peter Andersson both grew up in the same
small Swedish industrial town of Boxholm, both releasing
industrial music via the Cold Meat Industries label (as Raison
D'Etre and Deutsch Nepal) until they decided they could no
longer ignore their fate and started painting vividly bleak
sonic portraits of their snow n steel surroundings. A
healthier outlet than embarking on a mass shooting spree,
that's for sure.
Why not also have a Slängpolska to:
Adolf Filter,
En Halvkokt i Folie
and
Celldöd.
And Then You Die have done nothing to beat the "Finnish
men are inherently prone to depressive violent thoughts"
allegations, and their clanging racket is all the more
convincingly brutal and nasty for it. ATYD's many decades at
the bitter, frozen coalface of Finnish industrial have yielded
cartloads of abject low end sludge that recalls Godflesh (with
full blown Finnish winter alco-blues instead of standard issue
West Midlands depression) as well as the odd
Charlie Manson cover.
You could also have a humppa to:
Pan Sonic,
Cardinal Noire
and
The Insult That Made A Man Out Of Mac.
Blitzkrieg Baby take a sadistic glee in their work,
which can be summarised as the unremittingly grim yet
perversely cartoonish soundtrack to a hypothetical Norwegian
snuff remake of Salò. Not bad for a band whose name
sounds like something a rockabilly would call his car and/or
girlfriend.
You might also do a bygdedans to the tune of:
Anax Imperator
and the Polish-Norwegian band
Holy Toy.
ee:man are easily the most polished sounding band on
this list, hailing from Denmark with a stainless steel beat
selection that goes down some eerily cinematic routes that we
are absolutely definitely not going to describe as "Scandi
noir soundtrack industrial".
Some more sounds for the sønderhoning:
Rat-Alarm,
Eisenwolf
and
Skambidt.
Ok, but what about the Faroe Islands?
What about 'em? See: Denmark.