Assemblage 23’s ‘Endure’ turns 10 on 9 September
Assemblage 23 released “Endure” on 9 September 2016 through Metropolis Records, a ten-track eighth album written, performed and produced by Tom Shear.
Assemblage 23, the American EBM and futurepop project of Tom Shear, released “Endure” on 9 September 2016 through Metropolis Records. The album turns 10 this year. Shear wrote, performed and produced all ten songs himself, as he has done since starting the project in 1988.
It was the eighth Assemblage 23 studio album and the first in four years, following “Bruise” from 12 June 2012. Metropolis issued it as a single CD, as a limited deluxe two-disc set, on vinyl and digitally. Side-Line reported the three-format plan that June in Assemblage 23 to prepare new ‘Endure’ album as a deluxe 2CD set, vinyl and normal CD, at a point when the bonus-disc contents had not yet been published.
Assemblage 23’s ‘Endure’ tracklist and credits
The main album runs ten tracks: “Endure”, “Afterglow”, “Bravery”, “Salt The Earth”, “Static”, “Call The Dawn”, “Butterfly Effect”, “Barren”, “Grid” and “December”. Da5id Din mastered the record at Corrosive Audio, and Samuel Pfannkuche made the cover artwork. The vinyl edition carries the same ten songs with a separate master cut for the format.
The limited deluxe edition added a second disc of nine tracks: two further songs, “Ignorance” and “Goliath”, plus seven remixes. Neuroticfish and StereoSpread each reworked “December”, Solitary Experiments and Interface took on “Bravery”, The Rain Within remixed “Afterglow”, Angeltheory handled “Salt The Earth”, and Mr.Kitty closed the disc with a version of “Ignorance”. Metropolis Records described the album at release as “an intensely personal, & aptly titled look into the heart of the artist”.
Shear toured the United States behind the record in 2016 with a keyboard player and a drummer, the touring format he has used since the project began playing live in 1996.
About Assemblage 23
Tom Shear began recording in the early 1980s under the name Man on a Stage, mostly instrumental material, while also playing bass in a live band called The Advocates. He started Assemblage 23 in 1988 after hearing the industrial dance records played by a DJ opening for Depeche Mode, which pointed him toward the sound he wanted. For the first decade it stayed a side pursuit, and a cassette demo circulated in the autumn of 1998.
Shear signed to the Canadian label Gashed! in 1999 and released the debut album “Contempt” that November; it placed 42nd on the German DAC albums chart for 2000. “Failure” followed in March 2001 through Gashed! in North America and Accession Records in Europe. Its single “Disappoint”, issued on Accession that October, reached number 42 on the DAC singles chart for 2001 and dealt with the suicide of Shear’s father on 28 October 1999. Accession later reissued the back catalogue, reported in Accession Records is re-releasing its Assemblage 23 back catalog, and “Failure” returned as a 20th anniversary set on 2LP and 2CD, covered in Assemblage 23 sees ‘Failure’ released as a 20th anniversary edition on 2LP and 2CD.
Shear moved to Metropolis Records later in 2001, and the label has released his albums since. “Defiance” arrived in October 2002 after the single “Document”, and “Storm” in October 2004, whose single “Ground” spent eight weeks on the DAC singles chart and peaked at number 2. The single “Binary” entered the Billboard US singles chart at number 21 in March 2007, ahead of the album “Meta” that April. Two archive collections, “Early, Rare & Unreleased 1988-1998” and its second volume, appeared in 2007 and 2009. “Compass” followed in October 2009 and “Bruise” on 12 June 2012.
Alongside Assemblage 23, Shear runs the side projects Nerve Filter and Surveillance, and Helix with Mari Kattman, announced in Assemblage 23’s Tom Shear launches new project Helix – check the trailer. Live performances are supported by Paul Seegers on keyboards and Mike Jenney on drums. The project was based in Seattle for most of its run and now operates out of Franklin, Massachusetts.
“Mourn” arrived on 11 September 2020, and the tenth album “Null” came out on 7 November 2025, announced in Assemblage 23 announces ‘Null’ on Metropolis Records for 7 November 2025 and discussed by Shear in Assemblage 23 Interview: ‘We’re all a bunch of big, dumb monkeys’. Ten years on, “Endure” sits between “Bruise” and “Mourn” in that run, and the project returns to European stages in October 2026 on the run detailed in Assemblage 23 announces European headline tour with Mari Kattman.
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