Audio By Carbonatix
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Something snapped inside Icon of Coil’s Andy LaPlegua a few years ago. There he was, putting out well-behaved futurepop albums, when all of a sudden his id engineered a bloody coup and demanded he start yanking loud, evil beats out of his ProTools. The success of his debut EP as Combichrist, The Joy of Gunz, led LaPlegua to depart his native Norway for America in 2004. Stateside success came thanks to Metropolis Records, which picked up the Everybody Hates You full-length from German label Out of Line. That record, a touchstone for the industrial noise movement, defined the Combichrist sound, an open marriage of power-munched industrial samples, danceable beats, and LaPlegua’s outraged, wounded bark.
The charm, so to speak, of EHY was grounded in its more understated songs, but all subtlety has been hosed off for this year’s What the Fuck Is Wrong with You People. On this tour, two live percussionists and a pair of keyboard players reinforce LaPlegua onstage. This move guarantees a wilder, more apropos spectacle than that of the EHY tour, during which LaPlegua, looking slightly embarrassed, ran back and forth across the stage while a dude in a Hannibal Lecter mask sat bent over a sequencer. Be prepared for hours of anything-goes after-gig partying, for which he’s always amped.
