My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions Of A Knife

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult's "Confessions of a Knife" is a highly regarded industrial dance album, praised for its killer beats, clever use of samples, and dark, satirical lyrics challenging societal norms, often seen as a key record in the genre that blends heavy bass with a fun, danceable, yet twisted vibe, making it a cult classic and entry point for many fans. Reviews highlight its successful fusion of industrial sounds with disco/funk elements, memorable tracks like "The Days of Swine & Roses," and its surprisingly deep commentary on sexuality and religion, solidifying its place as a landmark industrial release. 

The band’s name come from a movie title by Marston E. Daley (Buzz McCoy) and Frankie Nardiello aka Groovie Mann, (they performed in Special Effect with Al Jourgensen a founder of Ministry). Daley and Nardiello worked out an image based on horror movies, as well as used samples cut out of movies this kind. MLWTTKK is also one of the few bands recording for a famous Chicago based industrial record label Wax Trax! and making continuously groove industrial music for years. Charles Levi joins the ranks of other bands, mostly industrial rock kind of so the list lenghtens every year, what’s more it’s easy to recognize his characteristic, vibrating bass lines.
Confessions of a Knife it’s another controversially named album by MLWTTKK, including 13 songs both funky and electronic, industrial and house tuned. Remastered version of the album differs to the original of the three ending songs. Rykodisc, for which MLWTTKK has been releasing albums since leaving Wax Trax! remastered the album after 14 years since it’s premiere.
There are a few great songs on the album like Hand in Hand with its trance, subdued climate and industrial background, way similar to the early Ministry stuff. Waiting for Mommie is a happy, glam-funky track with funny lyrics. It’s also a sound of Wax Trax!, which appears in a few Ministry songs from the early 80s. The title track (Theme Part I) sounds charming thanks to its gentle guitar riffs and subtle but solid bass rhythm, alike in (Theme Part II). It’s an instrumental track at the same time. I liked Ride the Mindway too for its coherent dynamics and Kooler Than Jesus (Electric Messiah Mix), already a cult MLWTTKK songs played on most of the band’s shows.
But what I loved it’s the third Theme for Confessions of a Knife, I guess the most industrial, with a siren and gloomy background, devilish vocals kept in an oniric vibe. It’s the best album of those I’ve heard by MLWTTKK so far.

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Sexplosion!

Easily My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult's finest hour, and a deliciously trashy and fun fusion of things few outside of the Throbbing Gristle/Soft Cell-family tree tried to combine industrial/goth posing, dancefloor campiness, and Vegas/lounge comfort and sleaze Sexplosion! never forgets to entertain. McCoy and his crew of characters balanced just enough semi-mainstream accessibility, captured in particular with the nutty stomp and leer of "Sex on Wheels" with what had already gone into the Thrill Kill Kult mix to whip up something that was the far less angst-ridden flipside to, say, Pretty Hate Machine or Psalm 69. Not that the group isn't worried about certain matters in life, but those matters consist mostly of who is doing whom and whether or not there will be enough spangles, muscle boys, and cocktails available. "A Martini Built for Two" is especially great, crystallizing an easy listening/exotica revival that is far away from the navel gazing of the likes of Combustible Edison, but with all the groovy keyboards and brass sections one could want. Meanwhile, plenty of other songs like "The International Sin Set" and the John Barry-sampling "Mood No. 6" nice use of some of the lesser known James Bond music, though the Thunderball theme crops up elsewhere recapture a swinging '60s/spy movie sass and pump it full of electronic beats and static-distorted vocals. TKK's more straight-up dance music origins aren't forgotten. "Leathersex" and "Princess of the Queens" weld the expected crisp beats to Chicago house piano and abbreviated diva vocals (McCoy's drawl sounds perfectly in its element on the former track), while the title track plays around with sampled voices of authority, another perfectly familiar gambit. Then, of course, there's "Sex on Wheels" itself as compressed and propulsive a celebration of fornication and driving as anything else America has ever come up with.

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Sex On Wheelz

Emerging amid a flock of hard-edged and essentially humourless industrial bands on the Wax Trax! label, Thrill Kill Kult strove to set themselves apart with tabloid-magazine outrageousness. Less a band than a lurid low-brow art project, Thrill Kill Kult initially began as a movie, and then evolved into an electro-disco soundtrack for an imaginary series of sex-Satan-and-gore flicks. Sex On Wheelz has a fantastic riff and sleazy swagger, as vocalist Groovie Man sings the chorus "Do my kisses burn? Do they take your breath? You got a lesson to learn/I'm the kiss of death". Its trumpet stabs are unbelievably awesome, but only but one highlight of a great album.