KNIFE-"bring unholy biomechanical filth to smear all over this devilish church"

 KNIFE-

AS PART OF:

BLACK PLANET
25TH JULY TWO VENUES THREE STAGES 21 BANDS







O come, creatures of the night!
Bear witness to BLACK PLANET: A Celebration of Australian Dark Music.



Descending for the first time as a full-spectrum gathering of darkness, Black Planet hosts 3 stages across two iconic venues: The Bendigo Hotel & Nighthawks. Built for devotees of sonic extremity and shadow culture, this inaugural edition transforms the night into a living cathedral of sound, atmosphere, and chaos.

The night will be separated into 3 spaces:

The Ossuary (Bendi Main Room) - A shrine to brutality and all things heavy
The Void (Bendi Upstairs) - A chamber devoted to noise, ambient, drone and experimental
The Black Hearts Lodge (Nighthawks) - A sanctuary of goth, darkwave, post-punk and nocturnal romance


Headlining Black Planet 2026 is THE AMENTA - One of metal's most uncategorizable acts, THE AMENTA have been synthesising the ugliest aspects of death, black, and noise into a unique maelstrom for over 25 years. Well-known across the world for their intense live shows, THE AMENTA combine speed, anger, and a weird sound with smoke and strobes to create a brutal, overwhelming experience.



Joining them across the 3 stages are: Mammon’s Throne, Hybrid Nightmares, Victoria K, Küntsquäd, Bentham’s Head, Knife, Npcede, Živa, Inaugural, Chiffon Magnifique, Blood In The Champagne, Dystropolis, Palliative, Blood of a Pomegranate, Military Position, Anocht, AnnaBortionist, Serene Ailment, Angellis Taliuu, and Koolooz.


Opening the Ossuary means setting the tone for a room billed as a shrine to brutality before anyone else in it has made their case. It's not a warm-up slot so much as a statement of intent — whatever comes after has to live up to what's been laid down first.




ARTIST: KNIFE
Knife are a Melbourne industrial metal band formed in 2020 out of the wreckage of various hardcore and metal projects, built on an equal love of extreme metal and crust/hardcore. Filed under industrial death and pulling reference points from Godflesh, Nailbomb, Meathook Seed, Amebix and Napalm Death, the band built a following fast off 2022 debut EP Wound — released via 1054 Records after strong interest both locally and internationally — before moving to Primitive Moth Records for 2025's Non Compos Mentis, an EP that sharpens the band's 90s industrial metal brutality with UK crust ferocity, working through societal decay, governmental corruption, social media manipulation and the case for confrontational revolution. The band has shared stages with Vicious Circle and played Metal in the Mountains and Essence Festival, and continues to move across metal, grindcore, punk and noise bills alike.

INTERVIEW:

Six questions:

1. The Ossuary's pitched as "a shrine to brutality." Heaviness gets used as a blunt word a lot — what does brutality actually mean in what Knife does? Is it physical, sonic, emotional, all three?

Definitely all three, and you cannot separate them at all. By combining mechanical harshness with cutting riffs and hellish screams-we aim for pure audio dystopia.




2. What do you bring into that room that nobody else on the Ossuary bill is bringing?

Lack of a drummer and mostly the raw, abrasive influence that is early UK crust and Industrial metal-nothing else -except maybe noise acts comes close.

3. Black Planet's being pitched as a "living cathedral of sound" — where does Non Compos Mentis sit inside that, and is there anything new in the pipe worth flagging ahead of the show?

The album builds on the previous work by adding more layers of insanity, and we recently have the new Primitive Moth version of our last EP. We have more music in the pipeline, and that will be a full album and possibly a few split EP's. We like our song Sinners, bring unholy biomechanical filth to smear all over this devilish church.



4. This is billed as a celebration of Australian dark music specifically. What does that qualifier — Australian — actually mean to what Knife does, if anything? And why does this underground still matter to you, this far in?

Well the so-called Australia with its racism, sexism, and never-ending crucification of anyone being slightly different from the braindead white suburban moron is not to be celebrated. But the underground music community is the family we all cling to, it gives so much and the underground music community means everything to us.




5. What are you actually trying to do to a room when you play it — what's the physical or psychic effect you're chasing, especially opening a room built for brutality before the night's even properly started?

Just connect with the crowd, and go forth into the abyss be it industrial, punk, hardcore, postpunk, noise etc. Have an experience that real music is all about. Not corporate arse kissing and favoritism. And adding political commentary in the performance, because we cannot separate music and politics. Pop that in your pipe and smoke it you right-wing scum!!!




6. Industrial metal's got its own lineage of "gods" — Godflesh, Ministry, Nailbomb, that whole bloodline of noise-as-riff you've named as direct influences. Where does Knife sit in that history now — still working directly inside it, or pulling it somewhere it hasn't been before? And five years and two EPs in, what's the through-line from Wound to Non Compos Mentis in terms of how that lineage shows up in the songwriting?

We obviously come from many types of past bands, but we have always loved the world created by Godflesh, Napalm Death, Nailbomb etc as you mentioned-the range of bands is endless but we lean into the more vile shit-I mean I adore NIN and Ministry-but go deeper and you have some savage bands that merge death metal with industrial, as well as gritty Uk Crust like Doom, Deviated Instinct etc. We fell we are a modern rversion of the style, toally influenced by the older foundational bands, but doing it our way-be it adding Doom, Sludge and hardcore elements also.

LINKS:





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SO GRAB A TICKET ASAP AND START WORKING OUT HOW YOU CAN SEE EVERY BAND...SOMEHOW


KILLER PRICES TO BE HONEST;
Both venues: $75+BF
The Bendigo Hotel Only: $45+BF
Nighthawks Only: $35+BF






ALL PICS ARE FROM THE ARTIST OR BAND'S SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES

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