Combichrist: Industrial Stalwarts Unleash ‘Desolation’ and Announce Expansive 2025 Tours

The industrial metal institution Combichrist unleashed its latest single, ‘Desolation,’ on June 5th, offering a bracing new soundscape for fans of the long-running project. Accompanied by a stark lyric video, the track signals a deliberate and emotionally charged turn for the band, weaving the aggressive, beat-driven fury for which they are known with a powerful melodic current. It is a sonic shift that feels less like a departure and more like an evolution, broadening the band’s traditionally confrontational sound with a layer of mournful introspection.

The new single precedes a series of announced 2025 international tour dates. Combichrist will begin an extensive European tour in the spring, followed by the Down and Under Again tour in Australia in September. This activity follows the release of their 2024 album, ‘CMBCRST,’ and indicates a period of new music and live performances for the group led by founder Andy LaPlegua.

From Aggrotech to Metal

Combichrist was formed in 2003 by Norwegian-born, Atlanta-based artist Andy LaPlegua as an aggressive, beat-oriented electronic project.

Emerging from the aggrotech and power noise scenes, early albums like ‘The Joy of Gunz’ (2003) and the seminal ‘Everybody Hates You’ (2005) established the band with a harsh, minimalist, and purely electronic sound designed for industrial dance floors. LaPlegua famously dubbed the style “Techno Body Music” or TBM. However, over two decades, the project has undergone a significant transformation.

While LaPlegua remains the sole creative force in the studio, the live lineup has expanded to include a full rock band. This shift began to crystallize with albums like ‘Making Monsters’ (2010) and was fully realized on later works, where live drums and guitars became integral to the songwriting process, pushing Combichrist firmly into the industrial metal sphere. This evolution has allowed the band to maintain its relevance, attracting audiences from both electronic and metal backgrounds.

The Sound of ‘Desolation’

On ‘Desolation,’ Combichrist deviates from the straightforward industrial aggression and dance-floor-focused TBM (Techno Body Music) that has defined much of its catalog. The song’s direction is clarified by frontman LaPlegua, who stated, “I reached deep into the bones of both Combichrist and Icon of Coil, not for nostalgia, but to carve a path through the ashes. This is a farewell letter wrapped in static, for a future we no longer deserve.”

LaPlegua’s explicit reference to Icon of Coil, his influential and more synth-melodic project, is critical to understanding the new song’s architecture. The track consciously fuses the raw, distorted percussive power of Combichrist with the atmospheric electronic arrangements and melodic sensibilities of Icon of Coil.

The result is a composition where soaring, melancholic synthesizer lines create a backdrop for the signature harsh vocals and punishing beats. This produces a distinctively mournful and grand quality, a complex emotional statement where visceral rage is tempered with a palpable sense of despair that directly reflects the song’s title.

A World in Ashes: The ‘Desolation’ Video and Aesthetic

The accompanying lyric video for ‘Desolation’ visually translates the song’s thematic core of decay. Rather than a narrative production, the video is a barrage of digital corruption and fragmented imagery that directly reflects LaPlegua’s description of the track as a “farewell letter wrapped in static.”

The visual field is dominated by a stark, high-contrast palette of black, white, and urgent red, with layers of glitch effects, pixelation, and video noise that suggest a collapsing digital world. Abstract shapes and distorted human figures flicker in and out of view, submerged in the visual chaos.

The lyrics themselves are presented in a utilitarian, blocky font, often breaking apart or being consumed by the on-screen static, reinforcing the idea that this is a message struggling to be transmitted from a broken future. This aesthetic is a direct continuation of Combichrist’s history of stark, confrontational visuals, updated for an era of information overload and digital decay.

The ‘CMBCRST’ Era

The release of ‘Desolation’ comes less than a year after the band’s tenth studio album, ‘CMBCRST,’ which arrived in 2024. The title, a stark, vowel-less rendering of the band’s name, suggested a deconstruction of their core identity, and the album itself served as a definitive consolidation of their two-decade evolution.

‘CMBCRST’ bridges the gap between the project’s aggrotech origins and its modern industrial metal persona. The record’s metal leanings are immediately apparent on tracks like ‘Planet Doom’ and ‘Violence Solves Everything Part II (The End Of A Dream).’ These songs are built on a foundation of heavy, down-tuned guitar riffs and powerful, acoustic drumming—a far cry from the programmed beats of their early work.

The latter track, a direct sequel to a fan favorite, demonstrates a commitment to their own lore while pushing the sonic intensity further. However, ‘CMBCRST’ is not a pure metal album. The sharp, aggressive electronic programming and intricate synthetic textures that are signatures of the band remain fully present.

The production carefully balances these two worlds, ensuring that blistering synth leads and pulsating electronic beats cut through the wall of guitars, creating a dense, layered, and often chaotic sonic tapestry. This makes ‘CMBCRST’ a comprehensive statement for the current iteration of Combichrist: a hybrid entity comfortable shifting from synthesized assaults to full-band metal aggression, often within the same song.

Back on the Road: Two Continents, Two Tours

The release of new music serves as a prelude to a period of extensive international touring. The band will first embark on a wide-ranging European tour in the spring of 2025, a continuation of their Still Making Monsters concert series. The tour package is significant for its curation, presenting a broad spectrum of the current industrial and dark electronic scenes.

Supporting Combichrist is the French/German aggrotech act Extize, who bring a high-energy, purely electronic aggression that echoes Combichrist’s own origins. Also on the bill is the United Kingdom’s Crimson Veil, a group known for fusing progressive metal structures and death-metal vocals with ethereal soundscapes, appealing directly to the metal-oriented side of Combichrist’s modern fanbase.

Rounding out the lineup is American darkwave artist Esoterik, offering a melodic and atmospheric counterpoint that aligns with the synth-driven sensibilities of tracks like ‘Desolation.’ The combination of these acts provides a comprehensive and varied live experience, showcasing the diversity of the genre.

Following the European leg, Combichrist will travel to Australia in September 2025 for a separate headlining run titled the Down and Under Again tour. This series of dates is a particularly significant event for the band’s fanbase in the region, which has not had an opportunity to see a full Combichrist headlining tour in several years.

The logistical undertaking of planning and executing two major, back-to-back tours on different continents confirms the band’s status as a durable and in-demand live entity with a persistent global draw, capable of sustaining interest in multiple international markets.

Conclusion

The concurrent arrival of ‘Desolation’ and the announcement of extensive international tours solidify a period of high activity for Combichrist.

The new single acts as a sonic thesis for the project’s current state, deliberately merging the industrial metal weight of their recent output with the melodic, electronic sensibilities of Andy LaPlegua’s foundational work.

For a band that has navigated a two-decade journey from a solitary electronic project to a full-fledged live metal act, this moment is not a return, but a synthesis. It demonstrates that after ten albums and countless live shows, the core of Combichrist remains a process of dynamic and aggressive evolution, driven by its founder’s consistent refusal to be confined by genre.