Industrial Puke – Alive to No Avail Review

By Saunders

Usually, the illustrious Mark Z deals with the vomitous streams flowing through the promo sump. But for the second time for this particular act, I’m taking one for the team. However, the subject is not in the vein of vile underground death or hellraising blackened thrash. Rather, Sweden’s Industrial Puke rip through a nasty collection of crossover hardcore/crust/death metal on second LP, Alive to No Avail. Featuring a chunk of the Rentokiller line-up and charismatic, raw-throated vox of Burst frontman Linus Jägerskog, Industrial Puke pull no punches in their bid to fuse genres and bust heads in one hefty swing. The band’s short and sweet debut, Born into the Twisting Rope, was a solid outing that didn’t break boundaries but executed with oodles of pissed off attitude and breakneck efficiency, resulting in an entertaining listen. Can they capitalize on a promising debut to deliver something more intense and well-rounded on their second opus to match the awesome on paper love of Dismember and Disrupt?

Alive to No Avail treads similar worn territory to its predecessor, while sharpening the points of their sound. Again, the formula skews more heavily towards their hardcore and crust influences. However, refreshingly, the old school Swedeath, thrash, and occasional melodeath influences add spark, heaviness, and versatility to their aggro, frantic attacks. Overall, it’s a more adventurous, fully fleshed album, dripping with spiteful aggression, speedy gallops, punchy riffs, and thumping grooves. Alive to No Avail is every bit as vicious as its predecessor, yet by the same token, everything feels bigger, beefier, tighter and altogether stronger in writing and design. Compact in length like the debut, this time around Industrial Puke have upped the runtime to lengths more closely associated with full-length territory, allowing more time to develop and expand their sound across a near half-hour smackdown.

Immediately, “Daily Chest Pain” goes straight for the throat, nasty belligerent riffs take hold as Jägerskog’s acidic snarls and gang shouted backing vox lend the song a vicious edge. A short, nifty solo rips through the controlled carnage, adding a welcome melodic spark. While boasting a more pronounced death metal influence, the hardcore crust vibes remain the focal point, thus tolerance towards these influences will likely determine the mileage. Integrating their dueling influences into meaty riffs that pack a solid punch, Industrial Puke leverage their stomping hardcore riffs and motifs, with Slayer-esque thrash chops, gnarled Swedeath riffs, and raw Gothenburg throwbacks (“Alive to No Avail”). Whether incorporating seething hardcore meets sludge tones on The Atlas Moth-esque “The Regretful Climb,” ripping through Slayer-indebted thrash with crossover attitude (“Flaccid Provider”), unleashing violently stomping grooves and punchy gang shouts (Biblical Curse’), or embracing the d-beaten Swedeath fury and dueling vox of “Average Dicks,” Alive to No Avail marks a consistently raucous, nasty ride.

Musically, Industrial Puke play fast and tight, demonstrating steady, experienced hands. The influences are broader than the debut, the scope has expanded. However, the raging, jugular ripping directness and amped up speed reign supreme. The death metal influences are slightly more forward, though again the hardcore and crust elements take center stage, generously dosed with old school thrash and snippets of buzzsawing death. As sharp and gnarly as Industrial Puke sound, moments arise where I crave a little more death in the mix. Jägerskog’s vocals are very good, and the recurring gang vocal trade-offs and occasional lower variation lend variety. However, it would be nice to hear more low growls and death vox to complement Jägerskog’s aggro snarl (such as those used to great effect on “Average Dicks”).

Industrial Puke write fast, fun, bruising music, featuring the songwriting smarts and raw aggression to draw in listeners from both hardcore and death metal worlds. Alive to No Avail marks a step forward for Industrial Puke, building from the solid groundwork laid on the debut, to punch out an album of deeper substance, stronger riffs, and tons of brawling aggression and headbangable anthems. Metalheads opposed to hardcore influences or put off by the higher-pitched, strained vocal style of Jägerskog will be unlikely to be swayed. On the flipside, fans of crossover styles and hardcore forward metal with a death crust should find much to enjoy here.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Suicide Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: March 28th, 2025

#2025 #35 #AliveToNoAvail #Burst #crossover #Crust #DeathMetal #Dismember #Disrupt #Hardcore #IndustrialPuke #Rentokiller #Review #Reviews #Slayer #SuicideRecords #SwedishMetal #TheAtlasMoth #ThrashMetal

Gadget Review: Windfall Energy Saving Plug (Beta)

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/03/gadget-review-windfall-energy-saving-plug-beta/

The good folks at Windfall Energy have sent me one of their interesting new plugs to beta test.

OK, an Internet connected smart plug. What's so interesting about that?

Our Windfall Plug turns on at the optimal times in the middle of the night to charge and power your devices with green energy.

Ah! Now that is interesting.

The proposition is brilliantly simple:

1. Connect the smart-plug to your WiFi.
2. Plug your bike / laptop / space heater into the smart-plug.
3. When electricity is cleanest, the smart-plug automatically switches on.

The first thing to get out of the way is, yes, you could build this yourself. If you're happy re-flashing firmware, mucking about with NodeRED, and integrating carbon intensity APIs with your HomeAssistant running on a Rasbperry Pi - then this isn't for you.

This is a plug-n-play(!) solution for people who don't want to have to manually update their software because of a DST change.

Beta

This is a beta product. It isn't yet available. Some of the things I'm reviewing will change. You can join the waitlist for more information.

Connecting

The same as every other IoT device. Connect to its local WiFi network from your phone. Tell it which network to connect to and a password. Done.

If you run into trouble, there's a handy help page.

Website

Not much too it at the moment - because it is in beta - but it lets you name the plug and control it.

Turning the plug on and off is a single click. Setting it to "Windfall Mode" turns on the magic. You can also fiddle about with a few settings.

The names and icons would be useful if you had a dozen of these. I like the fact that you can change how long the charging cycle is. 30 minutes might be enough for something low power, but something bigger may need longer.

One thing to note, you can control it by pressing a button on the unit or you can toggle its power from the website. If you manually turn it on or off you will need to manually toggle it back to Windfall mode using the website.

There's also a handy - if slightly busy - graph which shows you the upcoming carbon intensity of the UK grid.

You can also monitor the energy draw of devices connected to it. Handy to see just how much electricity and CO2 emissions a device is burning through.

That's it. For a beta product, there's a decent amount of functionality. There's nothing extraneous like Alexa integration. Ideally this is the sort of thing you configure once, and then leave behind a cupboard for years.

Is it worth it?

I think this is an extremely useful device with a few caveats.

Firstly, how much green energy are you going to use? Modern phones have pretty small batteries. Using this to charge your phone overnight is a false economy. Charging an eBike or similar is probably worthwhile. Anything with a decent-sized battery is a good candidate.

Secondly, will your devices work with it? Most things like air-conditioners or kettles don't turn on from the plug alone. Something like a space-heater is perfect for this sort of use - as soon as the switch is flicked, they start working.

Thirdly, what's the risk of only supplying power for a few hours overnight? I wouldn't recommend putting a chest-freezer on this (unless you like melted and then refrozen ice-cream). But for a device with a battery, it is probably fine.

Fourthly, it needs a stable WiFi connection. If its connection to the mothership stops, it loses Windfall mode. It can still be manually controlled - but it will need adequate signal on a reliable connection to be useful.

Finally, as with any Internet connected device, you introduce a small security risk. This doesn't need local network access, so it can sit quite happily on a guest network without spying on your other devices. But you do give up control to a 3rd party. If they got hacked, someone could turn off your plugs or rapidly power-cycle them. That may not be a significant issue, but one to bear in mind.

If you're happy with that (and I am) then I think this is simple way to take advantage of cheaper, greener electricity overnight. Devices like these use barely any electricity while in standby - so if you're on a dynamic pricing tariff, it won't cost you much to run.

Interested?

You can join the waitlist for more information.