BLACK MAGNET: Industrial Metal Unit To Release Crushing Third LP, Megamantra, July 25th On Federal Prisoner!
- Jason Hesley
- May 21
- 2 min read
Midwestern US-based industrial metal outfit BLACK MAGNET arrives with its gnarled third album, Megamantra, confirmed for release July 25th on Federal Prisoner.
Described by Revolver as, "excoriating and texturally scalding brand of metallic machine music,” BLACK MAGNET is the progenitor group of the new wave of American industrial metal. The band’s influences range from Godflesh and Nine Inch Nails, to Deftones and Alice in Chains. Formerly the solo project of founder James Hammontree, the group has expanded into a trio and now into a quartet, some of the members also collectively playing with the likes of All Your Sisters, Destroyer Destroyer, Greg Puciato, and more. Following two acclaimed albums on 20 Buck Spin among numerous singles and an EP and having morphed into a solid touring act in recent years, opening for 3Teeth, Code Orange, and Author & Punisher, BLACK MAGNET has become one of the most revered acts in the genre.
BLACK MAGNET now presents its most ambitious work yet, with the crushing Megamantra. A dense and dynamic album which sees the band taking its steadfast approach to both harsher and infectious realms simultaneously, with an almost punk-inspired anthemic and energetic attack. With passages drenched in searing synths and jagged, grinding riffs, the album pounds forward like an unstoppable machine – oscillating between mechanical precision and suffocating tension, encapsulating the inescapable cycles of control, submission, and decay that define the modern landscape. With Megamantra, it’s clear BLACK MAGNET plays heavy guitar-focused music.
Recorded at Earth Analogue Studio, once again engineered and mixed by Sanford Parker (Voivod, Yob, Rwake), Megamantra features additional synthesizers and background vocals by Eric Gorman. The album was mastered by Vlado Meller (Johnny Cash, Prince, Beastie Boys) and completed with artwork and design by Jesse Draxler (Kendrick Lamar, Emma Ruth Rundle, Full Of Hell), who, with Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plan, Better Lovers), co-founded BLACK MAGNET’s new label, Federal Prisoner.
The lead single from the album, “Endless,” sets the tone for the album’s sonic and thematic direction – a relentless, mechanized mantra of distortion, repetition, and raw power, embodying the claustrophobic energy of a world trapped in perpetual collapse. Accompanying the release is a stark, high-contrast music video – an abstract descent into the core of BLACK MAGNET’s sonic dystopia.
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