Chicago dark-alt. / industrial duo [melter] share their latest single and video, lending their trademark molten fusion of visceral-meets-mechanical to a cover of Gary Numan’s ‘Metal’.
Premiering exclusively with Side-Line Magazine yesterday (Tuesday 19 November), the new single and video comes on the heels of previous video-singles ‘Catwalk’ (September 2024) and ‘blacklist’ (July 2024), coupled with extensive touring throughout the US Midwest and East Coast during that time. ‘Metal’ is mixed and mastered by William Faith at 13 Studio; while the [melter]-produced video combines live footage by Rishi Productions and a video installation by Video Waste, from a performance at Chicago’s Liar’s Club on 30 October 2023.
‘Metal’ has been a regular live favourite of [melter] for quite some time, as frontwoman Jax Allos explains:
“…‘Metal’ was one of the first songs in our set when I first joined [melter] that set the tone for the [melter] sound – bass and synth heavy with the drums and vocals front and center. I have so much fun performing our version – it lets me channel my inner robot!”
On setting the template for the [melter] sound, founder, drummer, and multi-instrumentalist Rob Hyman agrees:
“I love that it has noguitars on it. That decision became a blueprint for [melter] – drums, bass, synths and vocals – it’s not missing a thing.”
Rob goes on to say:
“I discovered Gary Numan’s The Pleasure Principle album with the 30th Anniversary Edition in 2009. Since then, it has become one of my favorite albums of all time. It has some of the best synth sounds ever created on it. They are just clean and full yet powerful and epic. Just so simple and yet so good. ‘Vox Humana’ is perfection. The bass-and-drum groove is what drew me to ‘Metal’ – the way they lock in. The synths are very atmospheric. And the lyrics are perfect – a great juxtaposition for the human vs. machine conversation.”
Conversely, Jax approached the song from a very different perspective:
“I was aware of a cover version of the song, but not the original. I listened to the original only a few times, so that it didn’t keep me from my own interpretation.”