Church of Industrial Music: Skinny Puppy - Too Dark Park

A new Sunday thing, because I could talk about my favorite music forever. The idea here will be to talk about some albums that had a major influence on me, or impacted me in some way, and will focus on industrial and related forms of music. I usually try to promote music that's newer, or at least still available, but these articles will be more of a history thing, though there will likely be some that are more recent as well.

We're starting off with Skinny Puppy's Too Dark Park, because this was the album that introduced me to industrial music, along with some Ministry and KMFDM (who will be getting their own articles). This happened one night when I was 15, after a day of skateboarding. A friend I had made recently played this stuff while we were at his house getting some refreshment. At the time, I was listening mostly to punk rock, and oddball metal stuff like Primus and Faith No More. My experience with electronic music at this point was basically hip-hop and sci-fi soundtracks.

Listen to TDP on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4X1RUkSMSNsqOnk7kcR9d4

I clearly remember hearing the opening of "Convulsion" for the first time, and becoming instantly hooked. While I had heard some strange music before, the mix of sounds here, including the distorted vocals, was definitely new for me, and I was in love.

If you're into industrial music at all yourself, you're almost certainly familiar with Skinny Puppy. Though they aren't part of the "first wave" of industrial, I think it's fair to say that they pretty much defined the genre for modern listeners, and this album finds them at the top of their game. If you listen to almost any sub-type of industrial from the later 90's through to today, I think you'll definitely hear influences from this era of Puppy. They had great albums before and after this, but I really feel like this album is in a place of its own, perhaps more so than other SP albums. Cleanse, Fold, and Manipulate and VIVIsect VI may be similarly dark, but are maybe less sophisticated, for lack of a better word. Last Rights is maybe even more sophisticated, but is also a bit less heavy to my ears.

Not that this is all super-heavy, tracks like "Nature's Revenge" and "Tormentor" are a bit more understated in their darkness, but certainly "Spasmolytic" and the previously mentioned "Convulsion", to name a couple, definitely hit hard. While there may be heavier industrial out there, this is definitely an album to play for people who think only guitars can be heavy.

That about does it for this one, hope you'll give it a listen if you haven't heard this before.