Static-X was one of those bands that came out of LA in the mid-90s sounding like nothing else at the time. These guys took the industrial metal template that bands like Ministry had laid down and cranked up the BPM until it sounded like a robot having a seizure on a dancefloor. Wayne Static’s hair defied gravity almost as much as their music defied genre classification, and when they hit the scene with Wisconsin Death Trip in ’99, they carved out their own weird little niche they called “evil disco”.
The album is basically 35 minutes of pure mechanical mayhem that somehow makes you want to both headbang and hit the club. “Push It” was the obvious single, that staccato vocal delivery and machine-gun riffing made it impossible to ignore, and it became their calling card. But the real gems are scattered throughout the rest of the record. “I’m with Stupid” has this infectious groove that’ll get stuck in your head for days, while “Bled for Days” shows off their ability to go from zero to absolutely unhinged in about three seconds flat. The whole thing sounds like it was recorded in some dystopian factory where the machines learned how to rock, and Wayne Static’s robotic vocal style fits perfectly with the mechanical precision of the whole band.
Wisconsin Death Trip isn’t just a great debut, it’s one of those albums that basically invented its own sound. While everyone else in the late 90s was either going nu-metal or straight industrial, Static-X found this sweet spot where you could mosh and dance at the same time without feeling ridiculous about it. The production is crisp enough that every electronic squeal and crushing riff hits you right in the face, but it never loses that raw energy that made them so exciting live. It’s the kind of record that still sounds futuristic 25 years later, which is probably the best compliment you can give any industrial metal album.
If you’ve never heard this thing, do yourself a favour and check it out. It’s 35 minutes of pure adrenaline that helped define what industrial metal could be when it stopped taking itself so seriously and just focused on making people move.