Schkeuditzer Kreuz – Just Dropped In Records – Coventry – 22nd October 2025
A free gig, recommended by martin from Attrition, on a school night next to the Brewery?? Of course Fighting Boredom are there. A one man Industrial grindcore noise implosion, Schkeuditzer Kreuz come highly recommended so we are there, read what we thought below.
Dub club is running at Fargo village, there are cars parked everywhere, deep bass sounds and youngsters chatting, taking pictures and enjoying themselves. I head straight to the Brewery, winding my way through an unusual maze of automobile metal. The Photographer has already arrived so there’s a beer waiting and we sit with Kieran of the band, his blue haired mate and various members and relatives of Attrition chatting and having a laugh.
The record shop is a haven away from exhausts and frantic teens. It’s a decent turnout and we stand at the merch stand trying to persuade our blue haired new friend to buy Two Tone records. Schkeuditzer Kreuz consists of a large Australian guy with a shaved head who is at the moment pacing back and forth in front of the stage.
He’s got destroyed patched jeans and a black tee shirt on, he presses various buttons on synths and weird electrical things in front of him and as noise emits just says ‘It works’ to smiles from the audience. It starts with rising string instrument sounds that give it an eerie horror movie feel, a buzz comes in and everything becomes distorted and then an immense noise, static and slow industrial beats. A mixture of techno and EBM. It’s fast, hard and when he leans into the microphone the vocal is hoarse, static ridden and messed about, it sounds great. He paces the stage conducting and manipulating the sound in the air. It’s a martial warrior sound with a sharp violent edge. Think of a grinding decaying metal machine moving slowly forward sweeping everything in front of it away.
Now it’s a thrash noise, the same messed up vocal and electro sounds moving in. Think Clay records finest with synths. Sampled voices are struggling with the thrash. It heaves into a stop start groove and a nursery rhyme tune that warps into a marching factory music stamping. He shouts, chants and looks like he wants to break something. He hits himself on the head and mimics shooting, this is intense and nasty music.
He introduces the next song as being about Hard Drugs and Jane Austen. A weird electronic buzz and static edge lead into huge industrialised beats, there might be a siren in there too somewhere. Weird, warped and paranoid. We slide into squelchy synths and a hard techno beat hidden under several layers of nastiness with another angry vocal. A low drone undulates through the venue as static and beats slam in again, a drill sounds alongside a gruffer vocal. It sounds like a battle raging around you as you desperately hide under a burnt out tank. Circling beats roll over us and then the layered noise erupts again alongside broken buzzes of static. The beats turn low and muffled, relentless, angry and hard. It’s an assault on my senses.
It stops and he says that the next one’s kind of slow, I’m old, I need to breathe occasionally. It starts, sounding like gases venting with slow big percussion and a growling angry vocal, he stands and stares into space then paces again, back and forth across the stage, feeling and jerking with every sound.
This one’s a protest song, let’s fuck shit up , stand up for the things you believe in. He says this stuff in a very self effacing way. He says that although he’s privileged as a white male stuff is still really bad and for his immigrant fam, trans fam and female fam it’s even worse. Existance is Resistance so fucking keep dancing! A hard techno tinged industrial beat is covered in synth whooshes and a hard core punk sung/growled messed up vocal. It’s a call to arms for those of us who still care. Stand up. Fight back, dare to rebel, the music gets harder and faster.
‘It’s time to do something fucking stupid’ A low grinding sound starts and he’s in the crowd, on the floor singing into peoples faces, posturing and looking like he’s about to lose it with anger. He just doesn’t stop moving around the shop, giving it his absolute all.
‘I’m going to play a cover, which is another really stupid idea’ he pauses and says ‘This is by Discharge’ A low down D-Beat, static noise and a brilliant noise as he throws everything he’s got into the sound. It sounds like he’s playing every song off the first Discharge album all at the same time, it’s glorious.
He finishes with ‘the first song I ever wrote’ and the howling synths and fast beats just keep coming. He wipes his face and says thank you.
An excellent gig, free and unexpected. We persuade our new friend to buy two tone records and just as we leave Schkeuditzer Kreuz buys some too. A great night.
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Schkeuditzer Kreuz
All words by Adrian Bloxham, all pictures by Martin Ward.
