Coil’s ‘Gold is the Metal’ reissue arrives with ‘Cardinal Points’ video
Coil’s remastered reissue of “Gold is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders)” is out now via Mute and Threshold House, with a new “Cardinal Points” video.
Photo: Laurence Watson
English experimental industrial act Coil‘s remastered reissue of “Gold is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders)” is out now, October 30, 2026, via Mute and Threshold House, with vinyl and CD editions following on November 20. The release comes with a new video for “Cardinal Points,” built from footage of John Balance, Peter Christopherson and Stephen Thrower filmed in 1988 by René van der Eijk and directed by Alexander Oey for the program “Sound of Progress,” edited into the video by Ossian Brown and Davide Pepe.
“Gold is the Metal” is the first of four early Coil albums Mute and Threshold House are reissuing, each remastered with restored artwork, previously unseen imagery and new sleeve notes. The album is the third in a trilogy that began with “Scatology” and “Horse Rotorvator,” built from material sidelined during the sequencing of “Horse Rotorvator.” Stephen Thrower, who wrote the reissue’s new sleeve notes, describes it as “the culmination of a ‘magnum opus’ in the artistic sense, the closure of a trilogy – Scatology, Horse Rotorvator and Gold is the Metal – rounding up even our most jagged, cryptic, frictional, intemperate materials into a final balanced form.”
The album’s collage structure draws on field recordings including a brass band recorded in Mexico, a snippet of a British television documentary about young boxers, and a Thai boxing arena recorded by Christopherson. “Metal in the Head” preserves the sound of a hired Fairlight sampler malfunctioning and randomly distorting the music during recording.
Coil formed in London in 1982, when John Balance began using the name for a solo project. He had met Peter Christopherson, then a member of Throbbing Gristle, at a 1980 Throbbing Gristle show, and the two started performing as Coil in 1983 before leaving Psychic TV in January 1984 to work on the project full time. Their 1984 debut, the one-sided 12″ single “How to Destroy Angels,” was followed by Stephen Thrower joining as a full-time member from 1987 to 1992. On the reissue series, Coil are credited as Balance (1962-2004), Christopherson (1955-2010) and Thrower.
Threshold House was Coil’s own label, launched with “Gold is the Metal” in 1987. For this reissue, its artwork has been reconstructed by Thrower and his partner Ossian Brown, a member of Coil from 1999 to 2004, expanding on the original design with archive material including artefacts, photographs, artworks and personal notes made by Balance. Threshold House has been reactivated by Thrower and Brown for the new partnership with Mute, in association with the estates of Balance and Christopherson.
The series continues with Coil’s soundtrack for Derek Jarman’s “The Angelic Conversation,” the unreleased music Coil recorded for Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser,” and the compilation “Unnatural History.” Side-Line has tracked the reissue campaign since its announcement, including the expanded “Hellraiser” sessions and the earlier preview of the track “Either His, or Yours.”
“Gold is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders)” is available as a digital album on Bandcamp, with vinyl and CD editions arriving November 20 through Mute.
About Coil
Coil formed in London in 1982 as a solo vehicle for John Balance, who had met Peter Christopherson, then a member of Throbbing Gristle, at a Throbbing Gristle concert in February 1980. After Throbbing Gristle dissolved in 1981, Christopherson joined Genesis P-Orridge in Psychic TV, where Balance also worked before the pair left in January 1984 to concentrate on Coil full time. Their debut release, the one-sided 12″ single “How to Destroy Angels,” came out that year on L.A.Y.L.A.H. Antirecords.
Stephen Thrower became a full-time member from 1987 to 1992, the period spanning “Scatology” (1985) and “Horse Rotorvator” (1986) on Some Bizzare, and “Gold is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders)” (1987), the first album on the band’s own label, Threshold House. “Love’s Secret Domain” followed in 1991. The 1990s also saw Balance and Christopherson work under aliases including Black Light District, ELpH and Time Machines.
Coil’s catalogue through 1999 and 2000 included “Astral Disaster,” “Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 1,” “Queens of the Circulating Library” and “Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 2,” followed by “Black Antlers” in 2004. John Balance died that November after a fall at his home; Peter Christopherson completed the band’s final studio album, “The Ape of Naples,” released in 2005, before his own death in Bangkok in 2010.
Side-Line has tracked Coil’s reissue catalogue, including the 10th-anniversary 2LP edition of “Backwards” and the 10th-anniversary “Recoiled” remix album with Nine Inch Nails. “Gold is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders)” is the first release in the new reissue partnership between Mute and the reactivated Threshold House.
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