If you follow my true crime writing career, you know that I have always been a defender against those who want to blame music and movies for the wretched deeds of serial killers, mass murderers, and other killers. I have even had others in my line of work attempt to blackball me for my passionate love of horror films and heavy metal. These folks cannot reconcile that an individual can enjoy the darkest side of entertainment and yet still be a pacifist who treats people with respect and sympathizes with those who suffer real world violence.

Last week, loyal MetalSucks reader Matthew Kurtz asked me if I would write something about the Columbine Massacre as today is the twelfth anniversary of that tragic school shooting. The focus here would be on how the media and certain insecure people opted to lay the blame of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s shooting spree on heavy metal music, specifically industrial artists Marilyn Manson and KMFDM, violent videogames, and everything else other than the killers themselves.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CRIME SCENE PHOTO AFTER THE FOLD!!!

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Back in 1996, I was an angst-ridden young buck, and the only kind of music I truly cared about was industrial rock. Indeed, it was at the tail of a gilded age for the subgenre, the door to commercial success having been opened a few years earlier by major-label breakthrough artists like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry as well as notable independent label acts like long-slogging innovators KMFDM. If you have ever owned music from bands like God Lives Underwater or Gravity Kills, you know exactly what I’m talking about, brother.

That same year also saw the major release of a self-titled debut from SKOLD, a dark electronic project from a former member of glammy metal act Shotgun Messiah, a group that had toyed with industrial rock on their final album Violent New Breed. Though there wasn’t a bad song in the bunch, the highlights included machinist’s slog “Dust To Dust” and soaring dystopian anthem “Neverland.” Though mastermind Mr. Tim Skold would move on to lengthy stints with Marilyn Manson (refer to: The Golden Age Of Grotesque, arguably the band’s finest record) and the aforementioned KMFDM, this now woefully out-of-print album–and occasionally accompanying promo VHS cassette–has always held a special plate in my withered heart. This is is why I am so pleased to report that after thirteen (13!) long years, Mr. Skold has revived this long dormant solo act.

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Let’s face it: Ministry without Paul Barker just isn’t the same. Nothing on Houses Of The Mole, Rio Grande Blood, or The Last Sucker offered the thrills and low-end chills of albums like Psalm 69 and Filth Pig. As a longtime industrial music fanatic, I am sick and fucking tired of being let down every time Al Jourgensen puts out new music. His latest outing, the positively plebeian cash-in Sex-O Olympic-O, should never have been released under the Revolting Cocks name. Enough is enough! The time has come for Hypo Luxa and Hermes Pan to hug-it-the-fuck-out!

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