Stabbing Westward by Erica Vincent
It was right place, right time for Stabbing Westward. Weirdo rock with early elements of what would later be called “industrial” was clanking in the musical underground as far back as the 1960s. (Hey ya, Red Krayola!) Throbbing Gristle gave the genre form and a toolkit — loops, synths, live instruments, various objects. By the mid-’80s industrial music was a movement percolating just under the skin of the mainstream, propelled by the heavy electro of Skinny Puppy and the metrical fury of Ministry.
That’s around when two college radio mates in a small Illinois campus town formed Stabbing Westward and headed to Chicago, drawn by the hum of mechanized music from the city’s freewheeling Wax Trax! label and record store. Christopher Hall and Walter Flakus burrowed into the city’s busy music scene and self-released an EP, Iwo Jesus, in 1992, just as industrial titans Nine Inch Nails were redefining the look and sound of mainstream rock.
Signed to the major label Columbia Records, Stabbing Westward caught the wave with a trio of LPs that put them squarely in the ’90s industrial vanguard. Singles like 1998’s “Save Yourself” became MTV and rock radio bangers. By 2002, however, the moody underpinnings of industrial and grunge had given way to boy bands and Disney chanteuses dominating TRL Live. A technicolor pop era ruled and Stabbing Westward, sensing the shift, bowed out.
But industrial wasn’t snuffed out by sunlight: It just went back to where all dark things thrive, underground. After about 15 years and several false starts, Stabbing Westward re-emerged, first for a 2016 benefit show and then to resume writing and recording.
Their latest album, Chasing Ghosts (2022), is their first in 21 years and as galvanizing as anything from their heyday. They haven’t played in South Florida since Sunfest 2001 have just one other Florida show on the horizon, at Daytona Beach’s Rockville Festival. So if traveling to the home of Bike Week for your Stabbing Westward fix isn’t manageable, a jaunt to Respectable Street might be.
Heroes Live Presents Stabbing Westward with The Requiem and Violent Vickie, 7pm Friday, May 10 at Respectable Street in West Palm Beach. stabbingwestward.bandcamp.com ~ Tim Moffatt
