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BLACK MAGNET
Body Prophecy

20 Buck Spin (2022)
Rating: 7/10

Right kids, it’s time for a history lesson. Long, long ago in an industrial galaxy on the edge of my psyche (also known as the early 90s) I maniacally collected music like this; clanking, billowing, mechanised industrial mayhem, whether it was Godflesh, Head Of David, God, Skin Chamber, Paul Lemos, Swamp Terrorists, Malhavoc, Pitchshifter, Optimum Wound Profile, GGFH, Cop Shoot Cop, Treponem Pal etc, etc. It’s often nice to return to such mechanised horrors and so James Hammontree’s Black Magnet, I assume, is a conscious effort to pay homage to these bands, most of which remain forgotten as the likes of Rammstein and Ministry seem the preferred flavour.

Thankfully with Black Magnet there’s a sense of the sinister amidst the bangin’ n’ clangin’ as Hammontree marries together pulsating angst-ridden chimes with his own furious distorted wails. The dancier whirls of cuts such as ‘Floating In Nothing’ make for a decent respite from the more aggressive and brash hammerings of, say, ‘Violent Mechanix’, but it’s still very much industrial metal reeking of those aforementioned bands with the usual nods towards Nine Inch Nails with what the press release describes as “electronic deviance”.

I’m sure there will be fans of this opus who may be of the opinion that this is the most original thing they’ve heard, but I do recommend trawling through the rusty history of this genre to get a true feel for what Black Magnet is about. The strict metalheads, however, may be put off by such cacophony, but believe me during the early 90s the metal magazines, especially Metal Forces, were brim full of this kind of deviant destruction.

It is also worth noting that Godflesh’s Justin K. Broadrick bring his own touch to the track ‘Incubate (Justin K. Broadrick Remix)’, a deeply danceable Goth grind that prompted me to throw the 1989 movie Testsuo: The Iron Man back into the video player.

In-between though there are the hostile rants of ‘Wolverine Dreams’, the similarly visceral ‘Body World’ with its militant thuds and almost thematic schemes and punky vocal spits, while ‘Sold Me Sad’ has quickly become a favourite as a merely melancholic yet suspenseful interlude before the harrowing belligerence of ‘Last Curse’.

Body Prophecy is dark, while evoking images of old industrial London nightclubs of throbbing lights, heavy fog and S&M girls. However, it’s not anywhere near as original as one would imagine, but again it is nice to hear some of the old nuclear vibes of the early 90s resurrected within this driving, Oklahoma noise machine.

Neil Arnold

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