“Assimilate” by Skinny Puppy

"Assimilate" is one of the cuts on Bites, Skinny Puppy's first full-length album, which Nettwerk issued on vinyl in August 1985. cEvin Key and Ogre wrote the music together, Ogre supplied the words, and Tom Ellard is credited on sampler, which tells you plenty about how this Canadian industrial outfit built its cold, clanking dread.

Bites was cut around the same time the band was fattening their debut mini-album Remission into a full-length, and it was the last Skinny Puppy record made with Bill Leeb still in the ranks; he walked during the sessions for Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse and went off to start Front Line Assembly. The album had a long life after that, with a 1993 CD reissue padded out with material from cassettes, overseas pressings and the vaults, and a Canadian gold certification in 1994.

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