Die Krupps’ ‘V – Metal Machine Music’ turns 11 on 28 August
Die Krupps released “V – Metal Machine Music” on 28 August 2015 via Oblivion and Steamhammer, a 13-track album with a bonus disc of remixes and demos.
Die Krupps, the German industrial and EBM band from Düsseldorf, released “V – Metal Machine Music” on 28 August 2015 through Oblivion and Steamhammer, with distribution by SPV. The album turns 11 this year. Metropolis Records handled the North American edition. It was the ninth Die Krupps studio album and the follow-up to “The Machinists of Joy” from 2013, and it appeared as a double CD in a six-panel digipak, as a digital download and as a limited box set.
Side-Line’s own pre-order item of 5 August 2015, Die Krupps announce ‘V: Metal Machine’ 2CD album for September – pre-orders accepted now!, put the release in September. Wikipedia, Discogs and MusicBrainz all give 28 August 2015 for the German edition, and that is the date used here.
The title reaches back into the band’s own catalogue. “Metal Machine Music” was a 1992 single from the album “I”, named in turn after Lou Reed’s 1975 record, which Jürgen Engler has credited as an influence on the band. Engler and Marcel Zürcher wrote the music except where noted, with lyrics split between Engler and Ralf Dörper. Engler and Chris Lietz produced the record, Alex Henke recorded additional guitar and Sascha Osterland made the artwork.
Disc one runs thirteen tracks: “Die Verdammten (Prelude)”, “Kaltes Herz”, “Battle Extreme”, “Fly Martyrs Fly”, “The Truth”, “Road Rage Warrior”, “The Vampire Strikes Back”, “Alive in a Glass Cage”, “Branded”, “Kaos Reigns”, “The Red Line”, “Bonded by Blood” and “Volle Kraft Voraus”. Several of those are older pieces revisited. The prelude reworks the intro tape the band used on its 2011 and 2014 tours and takes its music from Maurice Jarre. “The Vampire Strikes Back” first surfaced on a Wing Commander soundtrack in 1998, the last song the band recorded before its 1997 break. “Alive in a Glass Cage”, “Road Rage Warrior” and “Volle Kraft Voraus” are re-recordings, the last of them the title track of the 1982 album. “The Red Line” had already appeared in a different version as the B-side to the 2014 single “Robo Sapien”.
Side-Line reviewed the album on 10 October 2015 and placed it next to the band’s 1990s run of “I”, “II – The Final Option”, “III – Odyssey Of The Mind” and “Paradise Now”, with the guitars sitting further forward. The review stated: “Mastermind Jurgen Engler, currently living in Austin-Texas (USA), still can’t choose between pure electronic music and guitars and succeeds in combining both in a powerful way!” The full text is in Die Krupps – V – Metal Machine Music (DCD Album – SPV/Steamhammer/Oblivion Records).
Die Krupps’ ‘V – Metal Machine Music’ singles and bonus disc
“Battle Extreme” / “Fly Martyrs Fly” arrived two weeks ahead of the album, on 14 August 2015, with a lyric video for the A-side that Side-Line covered in New Die Krupps video hits the net: ‘Battle Extreme’. “Kaltes Herz” followed on 16 October 2015 with “Branded” as its B-side and a promo video directed by Faderhead. “Alive in a Glass Cage” came out on 28 July 2016, re-recorded with Caliban and issued before the band’s first Wacken Open Air appearance.
The second disc carries eight tracks: a Darkhaus rework of “Kaltes Herz”, a Faderhead remix of “Alive in a Glass Cage”, “Road Rage Warrior ’82” and demo versions of “Battle Extreme”, “Kaos Reigns”, “The Vampire Strikes Back”, “Kaltes Herz” and “Alive in a Glass Cage”. Dependent Records reissued both the standard and the deluxe running order digitally in 2025.
About Die Krupps
Jürgen Engler, Ralf Dörper and Bernward Malaka formed Die Krupps in Düsseldorf in 1980. The name comes from the Krupp industrial dynasty, and the band has pointed to Luchino Visconti’s 1969 film “The Damned” as the starting point. The debut album “Stahlwerksynfonie” appeared in 1981 and set factory noise and metallic percussion against conventional instruments. The EP “Wahre Arbeit, wahrer Lohn” followed the same year. Dörper left in 1982 to form Propaganda.
“Volle Kraft voraus!” arrived in 1982 and moved toward synthesizers while keeping the metal percussion. “Entering the Arena” in 1985 dropped most of that percussion and carried the band’s first English-language material. Engler then ran the Atom-H label, signing thrash metal and hardcore punk acts, and that catalogue fed back into the band’s next decade.
In 1989 Dörper started a collaboration with Nitzer Ebb on “Machineries of Joy”, a new version of the early track “Wahre Arbeit, wahrer Lohn”, which he produced with Engler. Its chart placing led to the band restarting with Engler and Dörper at the front. Guitars entered the sound in 1992 with the album “I” and the Metallica covers EP “A Tribute to Metallica”. “II – The Final Option” followed in 1993, “III – Odyssey of the Mind” in 1995 and “Paradise Now” in 1997, after which the band stopped. Engler started DKay.com the same year and released “Decaydenz” in 2000 and “Deeper into the Heart of Dysfunction” in 2002.
Die Krupps returned to the stage for their 25th anniversary across 2005 and 2006, and the two “Too Much History” compilations appeared in autumn 2007. The remix album “Volle Kraft Null Acht” came in 2009 and the EP “Als wären wir für immer” in 2010, the first new material since 1997. A joint European tour with Nitzer Ebb followed in 2011. “The Machinists of Joy” arrived in 2013 as the first full album in sixteen years, and “V – Metal Machine Music” came two years later.
The band re-recorded its debut as “Stahlwerkrequiem” in 2016, reported in Die Krupps re-records 1981 debut album ‘Stahlwerksinfonie’ for vinyl (incl. CD) release, and the live set “Live im Schatten der Ringe”, taped in 2014, followed on DVD, Blu-ray and 2CD, covered in Watch trailer new Die Krupps live DVD & Blu-ray (incl. 2CD) ‘Live Im Schatten Der Ringe’ – out this Friday. Engler launched the EBM side project Die Robo Sapiens in February 2018, announced in Die Krupps frontman Jürgen Engler launches EBM-only project Die Robo Sapiens, and its debut album “Robo Sapien Race” arrived in October 2022. The same spring the band announced a single and a tour with Front Line Assembly.
“Vision 2020 Vision” was announced for November 2019 in Die Krupps return with a new album in November: ‘Vision 2020 Vision’, and Engler formed the industrial metal group Die Klute that year with Dino Cazares of Fear Factory and Claus Larsen of Leæther Strip. The covers album Songs from the Dark Side of Heaven came in March 2021, and the band’s first live recording, from 1981, was issued as The Big Industrial Bang on CD and DVD in April of the same year.
Marcel Zürcher, guitarist since 2005, left in 2023, and Nils Finkeisen covered guitar until 2024. The line-up is now Engler on vocals, guitars and keyboards, Dörper on keyboards, synthesizers and programming, Paul Keller on drums and Dylan Smith on guitars. In August 2025 the band signed a multi-album deal with Dependent Records, reported in Die Krupps sign multi-album deal with Dependent Records; new album due in 2026, and followed it with the tour-only EP Will nicht – MUSS! / On Collision Course. Engler and Dörper looked back across the run in Ralf Dörper interview on why Die Krupps still won’t behave and Die Krupps interview on the 45 Years of Industrial Steel North America Tour. Eleven years on, “V – Metal Machine Music” sits between “The Machinists of Joy” and “Vision 2020 Vision” in that sequence.
Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
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