Anti-guitar heroes 

It’s been said that anyone can play guitar—but if you’re in an industrial band, who really needs it? Any true rivet-head knows that classic industrial is not about the riffs. Typically it’s an infusion of synthesizers and drum machines with just a tad of guitar thrown in (which is usually so processed that it sounds like it came out of a box anyway). Thanks to acts like VNV Nation, who play Friday at the House Of Blues, industrial has become synonymous with gloomy, heavy dance music. Here Decider touches on landmark albums that don't touch the axe—or, at least, touches it just barely.

Band and album: Front 242, Front By Front (1988)
Industrial strengths: This Belgian act, no longer content with twiddling knobs and chasing down desensitized grooves, tightened its songwriting on Front By Front by concentrating on hooks and structure. The result was an amazingly consistent record that stood on the strength of the songs rather than the technology used to create them. And, remarkably, it still manages to sound futuristic more than 20 years after its creation.
Riveting track: “Headhunter” and its condemnation of capitalism isn’t just to make the proletariat proud; it’s a calculated pop tune that couples analog electronics with compressed, molar-rattling beats to make the proletariat dance.


Band and album: Skinny Puppy, VIVISectVI (1988)
Industrial strengths: Thanks to a lax RIAA during the '80s, Skinny Puppy packed a staggering amount of samples into its already dense songs. Singer Nivek Ogre's torture-chamber yells prod everything from global politics to druggie horrors. The album is so tightly packed that it needs a couple of listens in order to unwind its production and sort out the twisted logic underneath it.
Riveting track: “VX Gas Attack” documents the horrors of a chemical weapon attack, and it points at the complicity of the international community for peddling WMDs in the first place.


Band and album: Haujobb, Solutions For A Small Planet (1996)
Industrial strengths: As metal’s heavy-handed guitar riffs became almost inextricable from industrial music in the mid-'90s, Germany’s Haujobb drove the style back to its synthetic roots. Tossing sub-genre boundaries aside, the act crafted a sound that muddied the waters by churning up everything from vintage EBM to old-school techno, using dark-matter ambiences and classic aggression to tie it all together.
Riveting track: With "Distance," live drums join a bevy of synthesizers and growls as the band references its genre’s technological past. It might be enough to make you party like it’s 1990. (Clunky goth boots sold separately.)


Band and album: VNV Nation, Judgement (2007)
Industrial strengths: Taking the aesthetic of pioneers like Nitzer Ebb and Front 242 and expanding it with nods toward grandiose production and allusions to synth-pop, VNV Nation yanked its sound out of clubs and into bedrooms. Judgement isn’t afraid to bang when it needs to, which is only about half the time, as the duo explores quieter, carefully textured tracks as frequently as heavier ones.
Riveting track: “Testament” straddles the line between synth-pop and industrial with grace, showing off VNV Nation’s ambitions in uniting the two styles.