Machine Rock

A North American term of the 1990s for guitar-led industrial dance music, applied to acts that kept the riff, the frontperson and the song structures of rock while building tracks from drum machines, sequencers, samplers and programmed noise. Machine rock was commonly contrasted with the synthesizer-only sound of EBM: its records foreground distorted electric guitar and live-style drumming reinforced by electronics, and its performers presented themselves as bands rather than studio projects. The label circulated through the industrial scene's clubs, fanzines and labels such as #Wax Trax!# and #Re-Constriction#, overlapping industrial rock and industrial metal without being fully synonymous with either.