A reconstructed Soul Searchers breakbeat anchors the first single from ‘Apocalypse Pending’
Chicago’s The Joy Thieves return with ‘The Wrong End of Your Rifle’, the first single from their forthcoming album Apocalypse Pending, due June 5th on Armalyte Industries. The track, released on April 7th, features Chris Connelly on vocals.
Artist: The Joy Thieves
Release Date: 2026-04-07
Genres: Alternative Rock, Darkwave, Industrial Music, Post-punk
Description: The Joy Thieves release 'The Wrong End of Your Rifle' ft. Chris Connelly, first single from Apocalypse Pending, out June 5th on Armalyte Industries.
Featured image: Derick Smith
The song started from a specific production decision: drummer-producer Dan Milligan re-recorded the breakbeat from The Soul Searchers‘ ‘Ashley’s Roachclip’, one of the most sampled drum patterns in hip hop history, using contemporary drum sounds. That reconstructed loop became the foundation for the entire track. “At the very beginning of the creation process for Apocalypse Pending, the goal was to blend the existing Joy Thieves’ sound with elements of the golden age of hip hop, and I think ‘The Wrong End of Your Rifle’ does that as well as any song on the album,” Milligan says.
Lyrically, the single takes aim at the entanglement of state violence, corporate impunity and the passive consumption of brutality as digital content. Connelly frames it bluntly: “When the billionaires are accountable for nothing, and force their will by suppression in the streets, we have to become inventive. As we are forced to watch corporations create for-profit prisons, we must remember that we can’t argue or reason with bullets.”
The Joy Thieves operate as a rotating collective built around Dan Milligan and James Scott, jointly credited as Joy Thieves Productions. The project’s membership exceeds 80 contributors, pulling from a cross-section of industrial, rock, punk, darkwave, hip hop and experimental backgrounds. The band describes its creative authorship as belonging to “all of us. And yet, none of us.” Since signing with Armalyte Industries in 2018, they have released 11 records. Apocalypse Pending was produced, engineered and mixed by Joy Thieves Productions at Populist Recording + Mastering in Chicago. The roster pulls from Killing Joke, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Revolting Cocks, Pigface, Foetus (read our interview with Foetus), KMFDM (read our interview with KMFDM), Stabbing Westward, The Rollins Band, David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, White Zombie, PIG, Nitzer Ebb, Die Krupps, Naked Raygun, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, Machines of Loving Grace, Blue October, Pegboy and many more; current, former and touring members have all contributed.
Chris Connelly is a Scottish vocalist and multi-instrumentalist who relocated to Chicago in the late 1980s, where he became embedded in the city’s industrial and alternative scenes. He was a member of Fini Tribe (read our interview with Chris Connelly on Fini Tribe) before joining Ministry and Revolting Cocks, and played in Damage Manual alongside Jah Wobble (interviewed on Retrofuturista), Martin Atkins (read our interview with Martin Atkins) and Geordie Walker of Killing Joke. His long collaboration with Atkins extended through Pigface and other projects. Connelly has also worked with David Bowie‘s touring band and has maintained a prolific solo career spanning post-punk, art rock and spoken word, with numerous albums released since the early 1990s.
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