Australian ‘Industrial Synth Crust’ outfit Schkeuditzer Kreuz a.k.a. Kieren Hills has this week premiered the new video for ‘Sirens of Death’, the lead single from the forthcoming third album, Swan Grinder. The new video is shot and edited by David Xuereb at Sydney, Australia’s Grim Reflections, who also created the previous Schkeuditzer Kreuz video for ‘Ratchet’. Kieren says:
“Sirens is a relatively slow and heavy song, almost a synth version of industrial metal, albeit with some weirdness thrown in. Lyrically it takes a bleak and blunt look at the eternal war we have been a party to for as long as anyone can remember. The video tells that story with equally harsh and ugly visuals interspersed with my own vocal howls of rage.”
Premiering the ‘Sirens of Death’ video on CVLT Nation, Meghan MacRae wrote:
“With industrial synths that make my skin itch in the best way possible, eerie sirens, and gritty, rasping vocals, ‘Sirens of Death’ demands we break the endless cycle of war that’s lasted thousands of years… It’s the one thing we haven’t made progress on, and SCHKEUDITZER KREUZ is holding our faces in it with an industrial synth punk beatdown.”
The first couple of advance reviews for the Swan Grinder album are also in.
“Just when you think every genre hybrid has been done, and are feeling worn and jaded by everything, someone chucks you something unexpected… Swan Grinder is as ugly and intense and industrial as its title suggests. Spasmodic drum machines sputter and blast all over, underpinning pulsating electronic basslines and ear-shredding blasts of noise and distortion. And all of this provides the backdrop to raw, rasping vocals. In some ways, I’m reminded of really early Pitch Shifter – but with the wall of guitars replaced by abrasive squalls of electronic noise… While there are elements of the construction which share common ground with, say, KMFDM, or PIG, the overall sound is altogether dirtier, gritter, rawer – and then there are the vocals, which are pure metal. As such, the result is a different kind of hybrid – hard, abrasive, and as nasty as the image the title conjures.”
– Aural Aggravation, UK
“…Hills presents his most focused assault yet on societal complacency… Hills has carved out a distinctly antipodean take on industrial music, one that marries the confrontational spirit of crust punk with the mechanical brutality of EBM and harsh electronics. Swan Grinder… finds the Australian artist refining his “Industrial Synth Crust” formula whilst maintaining the politically charged urgency that defines his work… The project’s ethos… recalls the confrontational man + machine solo endeavour of Author & Punisher, whilst the samples and social commentary echo the energy of Ministry’s peak-era provocations. Yet Hills has forged something uniquely his own in that of a grinding, mechanised form, channelling environmental and political rage through distorted synthesisers and pummelling rhythms.”
– Discipline Mag, Australia
Kieren is meanwhile gearing up to embark on the second Schkeuditzer Kreuz tour across Europe, from September to October 2025, in support of the new Swan Grinder album. Tour dates are currently booked through Central Europe, South Caucasus, Spain, and UK, with more to be confirmed. Released on 30 August 2025, Bandcamp presales for the forthcoming Swan Grinder album also come with a bonus remix CD and denim patch. Kieren says of the album and tour:
“I’ve taken everything I have learned from previous records, and from previous tours, and put it all together to take Swan Grinder on the road across as much of Europe as I possibly can.”
Variously termed “Industrial Synth Crust”, “D-beat Raw Synth Punk”, “Trans-Positive Anti-Fascist Synth Crust” and “One human and some machines making noise, in the face of it all”, Schkeuditzer Kreuz is a mutant post-apocalyptic hybrid: an intersection between harsh, confronting, mechanical noise and the comparatively raw, organic materials of hardcore, crust, and d-beat punk. It is a noise wrought from the anguish and despair of Antipodean punk veteran Kieren Hills, from a cabin that he built in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia.
Since 2020, Schkeuditzer Kreuz has released two full-length studio albums: Isolated and Alone (2021) and No Life Left (2023), alongside a raft of singles, videos, EPs, split-releases, compilation tracks, and remix collaborations. As a live act, Schkeuditzer Kreuz remains in constant live demand worldwide: touring extensively across the UK and mainland Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, and recently touring Australia with pioneering UK industrial legends ATTRITION (Oct-Nov 2024) and US anarcho-breakcore outfit, DECIDE TODAY (Dec 2024-Jan 2025). Kieren has since become a touring live member of ATTRITION, with ATTRITION / Schkeuditzer Kreuz tour dates together in 2025 including shows in Thailand, Hong Kong, and England.
Swan Grinder is the third full-length Schkeuditzer Kreuz album, mastered at The Cage by ATTRITION‘s Martin Bowes, and scheduled for release in August, followed by the European tour in September and October 2025. Full tour dates are listed below.
www.schkeuditzerkreuz.com