Test. Dept. is too my liking as well . I enjoy the tribal beats , combined with Industrial .

Cool, I've only recently gotten into Test Dept. myself, I put off buying anything by them because I'd been told they were a Neubauten rip-off. Terra Firma's probably my favourite album so far, it's a bit more soundtrack-ish than the other stuff I've heard, but still definitely Test Dept.

Is his voice good or bad, in your opinion. I love his vocals, they sound really hypnotic to me. His post-Swans band, Angels of Light released the best album of last year, IMO, "Everything is Good Here/Please Come Home", kind of folky and acoustic, but still fairly intense.

I like the fact that no-one can agree what's 'industrial' and what's not. Does the term have any meaning anymore? I think there's probably less than 5 bands that anyone can definitely point at as being industrial.

Test Dept - A Good Night Out the live album is superb, it just really is. There should be more bagpipes in industrial music

If you're into old traditional industrial like that have a look into Babyland. Also get the Crno Klank - Etat des lieux album

[quote] Is his (Michael Gira) voice good or bad, in your opinion.

IMO his voice is good, I like it a lot.
That's why i also bought the SKIN album w/ Gira.
After that album I didn't purchase any of his releases.

Funny , a good night out was the first thing i heard by Test Department.
I was very impressed by the bagpipes i must say. Still looking for an original.
Think i was 14 orso and this stuff was very different fomr the stuff i was listening
at that time (clan of xymox/the cure/joy division and other new wave-like bands)

In that case which album(s) would you recommend?

I'd head for either "Leichenschrei", which is creepy rather than outright noise, or their comp of rare singles "Auto Da Fe", which runs from thrashy punk to machine noise to big stomping, clanging tribal stuff.

Their debut, "Information Overload Unit" is classic 'washing machine and screeching' industrial. Hard on the ears, and fairly basic, but well worth a listen. Zamia Lehmanni (Songs of Byzantine flowers) was the only late-era release worth listening to. Baroque cello music, basically, quite beautiful. That album provided the soundtrack to the pretty cool film "Dead Calm", too.

I thank you very much for your recommendations, Darkness Fish. I will check out Leichenschrei as its name sounds familiar. I think a music journalist writing about Industrial music may have mentioned it as worth getting. Mind you, I've heard of Auto Da Fe before but only because of Elias Canetti's rather extraordinarily great book by that name!