Photo credit: Derick Smith
Following the release of The Wrong End of Your Rifle, and a video from Lumbra Productions, Chicago alt-rock outfit, The Joy Thieves, have shared their single, “No Anchor.” It is the second taste of their full-length album, Apocalypse Pending, out June 5th, via the Armalyte Industries record label. The track also features a guest vocal appearance from Chris Connelly (Fini Tribe, Revolting Cocks, Ministry, Pigface). Catch it below.
Pre-order Apocalypse Pending here: https://thejoythieves.bandcamp.com/album/apocalypse-pending
“These days, it seems like people are capable of being pushed or tempted to exist in a state where they are alone. No moral compass. No ethics. No empathy. No forgiveness. No anchor. In a society where guilt seems to be gone, people can act however they want,” says Chris Connelly.
The Joy Thieves’ Dan Milligan adds, “When I was writing the music for “No Anchor,” I purposefully used ever-changing, off-kilter guitar riffs that seem to stray farther and farther from the song’s key as it progresses. Because the music never truly repeats, or settles down, it creates the sickening sense that everything is unresolved, and it’s only going to get worse.”
“No Anchor” doesn’t just make noise, but detonates with intent—leaving scorch marks where complacency used to stand. It examines how increased isolation in our modern world has pushed people towards amorality and an increased sense of hopeless nihilism. This song articulates a world slipping free of moral gravity. Longtime mavericks at the edge of collapse, the band captures the zeitgeist with such precision.
While the first track vents our collective fury at a world where corporate giants and billionaires operate with total impunity, this new single shifts the lens toward the resulting decay of the individual, exploring a chilling world where the absence of a moral “anchor” leads to total societal and personal dissolution.
Revolving around musicians-producers Dan Milligan and James Scott (a.k.a. Joy Thieves Productions), The Joy Thieves is a musical supergroup that includes members of Ministry, Stabbing Westward, The Rollins Band, Killing Joke, Pigface, RevCo, PIG, David Bowie, Blue October, Machines of Loving Grace, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, Naked Raygun, Foetus, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, Pegboy, Nitzer Ebb, Die Krupps and more.
Since signing with London alternative-industrial label Armalyte Industries in 2018, The Joy Thieves have delivered 11 critically-acclaimed releases. Apocalypse Pending is the newest addition — produced, engineered and mixed by Joy Thieves Productions at Populist Recording + Mastering.
Joy Thieves Productions crafts their surprisingly cohesive signature sound from the contributions of its ever-growing 80+ roster of members, drawn from a diverse range of genres, including industrial, rock, punk, darkwave, hip hop and experimental music, they produce a sound created by “all of us, and yet, none of us”. Creating a sound all their own, their music is aggressive, yet precise; confrontational, but refined; and harsh, yet melodic.
This new song cycle began with producer-drummer Dan Milligan re-recording iconic hip hop breakbeats with modern drum sounds. The Wrong End of Your Rifle began exactly that way — with a modern re-imagining of the one of the most famous breakbeats of all time (“Ashley’s Roachclip” by The Soul Searchers). This formed the basis upon which the entire track was built.
For a band with members all over the world, The Joy Thieves’ music feels very Chicago. Anchored by their love of industrial rock, their music immediately outgrows the restrictions of the genre by stretching into the new realms, creating a sound that both honors the past while pushing its evolution into the future.
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