Combichrist

Who knows whether Combichrist would have ever been formed if not for the fanzine created by the project’s leader, Andy LaPlegua? Way back in the 1990s, on the pages of the zine, the musician sketched out the figure of the Combichrist, the punk rock messiah who demolishes everything under the influence of innumerable substances to then heal those who suffered his blow. Not long after the artist conceived the aforementioned concept, he moved from Norway to the United States and started his project there. In 2003, the musician released his debut LP The Joy of Gunz and the EP Kiss the Blade. The material on both adhered to the truculent convention of aggrotech, i.e. techno and EDM turned up to the extreme and amplified with elements of power electronics and harsh noise. The records became acclaimed in lightspeed pace and the career of Combichrist – back then, still Andy’s solo project – got off the ground. The project has prospered ever since, attracting both electronic and gothic music fans, as well as, of course, metalheads. After all, the metal element has been a crucial component of Combichrist since the album We Love You, where the aggrotech core played second fiddle to metal of industrial persuasion. This convection has been the primary direction of the band until this day, the evidence of which you can hear on their latest album CMBCRST, released in 2024.