The Joy Thieves have opened their ‘Apocalypse Pending’ album campaign with a track that doesn’t ease you in. “The Wrong End of Your Rifle,” featuring Chris Connelly (Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Pigface, Fini Tribe) on vocals, is out now via Armalyte Industries, a jagged, industrial-rooted broadside aimed squarely at corporate impunity, state violence and the screen-numbed culture that lets it all happen in plain sight. The full album lands June 5.
The track’s foundation is a modern re-recording of one of hip hop’s most iconic breakbeats, “Ashley’s Roachclip” by The Soul Searchers, rebuilt by producer-drummer Dan Milligan with contemporary drum sounds and layered into something that hits with both sonic force and political edge. God Is In The TV Zine called it “blistering and unrelenting,” adding that it “lingers long after the noise fades.” That’s exactly the right read.
Connelly doesn’t soften the message. “When the billionaires are accountable for nothing and force their will by suppression in the streets, we have to become inventive,” he says. “We can’t argue or reason with bullets.” It’s confrontational language for a confrontational track, and it fits the moment The Joy Thieves are clearly trying to capture across ‘Apocalypse Pending.’
The Joy Thieves revolve around Dan Milligan and James Scott, drawing from an 80-plus member roster that includes current and former contributors from Ministry, Stabbing Westward, Killing Joke, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, KMFDM, Nitzer Ebb and more. Their approach produces something they describe as made by “all of us. And yet, none of us,” and the result is aggressive, precise and layered with melody in ways that pure industrial rarely manages.
Produced, engineered and mixed by Joy Thieves Productions at Populist Recording + Mastering in Wheaton, IL, “The Wrong End of Your Rifle” is available now on Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp.