Los Angeles, CA · nu metal · industrial metal

Spineshank

2 festivals played ↓

LA industrial-tinged nu metal, mechanical and cold in a way most of their late-'90s peers never managed — machine-press riffs, still grinding.

Before Spineshank, Jonny Santos, Marlo Gonzalez, Tim Mankowski and Tommy Decker played together as Basic Enigma, releasing a 1994 demo called Drunk With Power under the influence of Pantera, Slayer and White Zombie. Hearing Fear Factory's Demanufacture pushed them toward a more programmed, machine-like way of writing, and the group reformed under a new name in 1996.

Mike Sarkisyan had already replaced Mankowski on guitar, and Santos, who had switched from guitar to bass, became the singer almost by accident after joking around with a Slayer cover during auditions. Fear Factory's Dino Cazares heard an early demo and got the band an opening slot with Fear Factory and Coal Chamber, which drew the attention of Roadrunner Records.

Roadrunner's Kevin Estrada worked with the band on the song "Detached" before signing them to a seven-album deal, with bassist Robert Garcia completing the lineup. Strictly Diesel followed in 1998, featuring a guest vocal from Fear Factory's Burton C. Bell on "Stain", and the band toured Europe with Fear Factory and Kilgore that year.

The Height of Callousness in 2000 leaned further into industrial metal, and Spineshank played Ozzfest the following year and toured with Disturbed, Hed PE, Orgy and Mudvayne. Self-Destructive Pattern followed in 2003, continuing the pattern of down-tuned riffing set against programming and samples.

The band split apart in the mid-2000s. They reunited some years later and released a fourth studio album, Anger Denial Acceptance, in 2012, returning to the same down-tuned, programmed sound that had defined their Roadrunner years, and have kept performing since.

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nu metalindustrial metal