Schkeuditzer Kreuz

Schkeuditzer Kreuz is Dystopian Electronica from the Blue Mountains in Australia - one human and some machines, making noise, in the face of it all.

"S.K. is that fantastic intersection between crust punk and hard industrial synth… This band is doing something way different for extreme genres, it’s also amazingly original and heavy as hell"
- Devil's Horns Zine

New EP KEEP DANCING NOW! Order Here

Latest album Swan Grinder Order Here

REVIEWS FOR SWAN GRINDER

“What makes ‘Swan Grinder’ special is how much Schkeuditzer Kreuz has grown into his sound… heavier, more layered, more varied, yet still harsh, distorted, and ugly... It’s still him screaming into the void, but now more sharply articulated, more menacingly sculpted… a sonic clarity that pushes the disturbing undercurrent into sharper focus. Schkeuditzer Kreuz has always been a hybrid… Swan Grinder is that and more: a post-apocalyptic soundtrack… music that doesn’t just demand your attention, but demands you drag others into the storm with you. For anyone who thought Schkeuditzer Kreuz had already nailed the industrial-punk hybrid, ‘Swan Grinder’ proves there are still darker, heavier, more exhilarating depths to be mined. Play it loud. Always loud.”
– Louder Than War“…Hills presents his most focused assault yet on societal complacency… Hills has carved out a distinctly antipodean take on industrial music, one that marries the confrontational spirit of crust punk with the mechanical brutality of EBM and harsh electronics. Swan Grinder… finds the Australian artist refining his “Industrial Synth Crust” formula whilst maintaining the politically charged urgency that defines his work… The project’s ethos… recalls the confrontational man + machine solo endeavour of Author & Punisher, whilst the samples and social commentary echo the energy of Ministry’s peak-era provocations. Yet Hills has forged something uniquely his own in that of a grinding, mechanised form, channelling environmental and political rage through distorted synthesisers and pummelling rhythms.”
– Discipline Mag“Just when you think every genre hybrid has been done, and are feeling worn and jaded by everything, someone chucks you something unexpected… Swan Grinder is as ugly and intense and industrial as its title suggests. Spasmodic drum machines sputter and blast all over, underpinning pulsating electronic basslines and ear-shredding blasts of noise and distortion. And all of this provides the backdrop to raw, rasping vocals. In some ways, I’m reminded of really early Pitch Shifter – but with the wall of guitars replaced by abrasive squalls of electronic noise… While there are elements of the construction which share common ground with, say, KMFDM, or PIG, the overall sound is altogether dirtier, gritter, rawer – and then there are the vocals, which are pure metal. As such, the result is a different kind of hybrid – hard, abrasive, and as nasty as the image the title conjures.”
– Aural Aggravation“Kieren Hills has never sounded more unhinged—or more focused… a descent into the kind of dystopian fever dream that would make Godflesh weep… Swan Grinder confirms what the underground has known since Hills launched Schkeuditzer Kreuz: this is an artist operating on a completely different level than most of his peers. This is dystopian electronica at its most visceral and uncompromising—essential listening for anyone who thinks the future sounds like machinery eating itself.”
– Devil’s Horns Zine

VIDEOS

Title track of the new album Swan Grinder - Live at Blacksound Records back in December.Filmed by Photoyunist - he takes amazing photos and videos of bands performing all over the place. He usually turns up to at least one show when I play in Melbourne but has also (for example) randomly turned up when I played in Yokohama. An amazing photographer and archivist of live music.

...video weaves together war footage and protest imagery, creating a visceral commentary on perpetual conflict. As Hills notes: “The video tells that story – the death, the destruction and the suffering. The eternal war. From muskets to MQ-9s while we feed people into that endless meatgrinder. Just one more war. Just one more
fix.”
– Discipline Mag

– CVLT Nation"...At what point in our lives to we agree to take part in the performance of human society? As SCHKEUDITZER KREUZ‘s beats rain down on me like hammers from the sky and the buzz and hum of “Ratchet”‘s melody interferes with my brain waves, I think about that point where I lost who I really was to the game of getting along with everyone else so I could grasp at feelings of being safe and cared for. To be honest, it wasn’t a game I was great at, but now I’m starting to understand that this doesn’t indicate some deep flaw in me."– CVLT Nation

“…listening to the chaotic sounds of industrial synth crust // d-beat raw synth punk multi-machinist SCHKEUDITZER KREUZ perfectly captures the disgust and fear I felt watching the country descend into yet another Libs vs Cons debate… On “Second Life,” he samples soundbites from the dizzying and disorienting media bullshit that follows a mass shooting, chanting “Another one dead / and another one fucking dies”!”– CVLT Nation

Joy is the single and a killer choice, and also a clear indicator of the mammoth progression/step up on this album, the samples, and the synth work/programming is just wild, robotically entrancing and so apocalyptic. Sometimes you just need an animated and gloomy electronic sledgehammer to your face; well at least I do.Devil's Horns Zine

“New South Wales-based artist Schkeuditzer Kreuz (alias Kieren Hills) unleashes a ferocious reworking of the track, combining dark, abrasive post-industrial influences with DIY punk. Difficult to pigeonhole musically, Kieren defines the Schkeuditzer Kreuz sound as “D-Beat Raw Synth Punk” – also the name of an EP from earlier in 2021. This cover is dissonant static, an eerie voice cutting through the din and scratches; a disembodied Big Brother.”Post-punk.com

On the heels of extensive international Swan Grinding tour dates across the UK & mainland Europe (Sept/Oct 2025), Australia & New Zealand (Nov 2025–Feb 2026), and a recent visit to Delhi, India for the inaugural dark-alternative Mauthpit event (March 2026), Australian-based Industrial Synth Crust artist Schkeuditzer Kreuz, a.k.a. Kieren Hills, is now focusing on upcoming shows in October 2026 across Japan, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia, with more shows in the region still to be confirmed. Schkeuditzer Kreuz released the third studio LP, Swan Grinder, in July 2025: the project’s most widely praised release to date.Variously termed “Industrial Synth Crust”, “D-beat Raw Synth Punk”, and “One human and some machines making noise, in the face of it all”, Schkeuditzer Kreuz is a mutant post-apocalyptic hybrid: an intersection between harsh, confronting, mechanical noise and the comparatively raw, organic materials of hardcore, crust, and d-beat punk. It is a noise wrought from the anguish and despair of Antipodean punk veteran Kieren Hills, from a cabin that he built in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia.
Since 2020, Schkeuditzer Kreuz has released three full-length studio albums: Isolated and Alone (2021), No Life Left (2023), and latest offering Swan Grinder (2025). Swan Grinder has been praised by the likes of Louder Than War (UK), CVLT Nation (USA), Orkus! (Germany), Discipline Mag (Australia), Side-Line (Belgium), Vive Le Rock (UK), The Big Takeover (USA), Industrial Complexx (Spain), Humans vs. Robots (Italy), SLAM Magazine (Austria), and many more. As a live act, Schkeuditzer Kreuz remains in constant live demand worldwide, while Kieren has also become a touring live member of pioneering UK industrial legends, ATTRITION.Playing in bands for over 35 years, Kieren Hills began his journey into underground music in New Zealand, during the late 1980s, before relocating to Australia with riotous Wellington NZ punk rock group, S.M.U.T., in 1993. He turned up a few years later in Stuttgart, Germany’s Murder Disco X; followed by countless Sydney underground bands, including crust punk / d-beat merchants Vae Victis; hardcore legends Dark Horse; and deathrock / gothic punk outfit Death Church, to name a few.

Beyond punk, Kieren traces his discovery of noisy industrial and experimental electronic music to his youth in New Zealand, influenced by a previous generation of punk musicians who had begun to explore different possibilities: Skeptics, Gordons, Headless Chickens, Froit Head, CeLL, Invisible Dead, and Children’s Television Workshop among them. These local groups in turn led Kieren to the music of Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire; Laibach and Einstürzende Neubauten; Ministry, Big Black, and Butthole Surfers. Following “the wreck of the plague year twenty-twenty”, Kieren says, there was a “greater affinity with machines, making the creation of Schkeuditzer Kreuz inevitable.”Swan Grinder is the third full-length Schkeuditzer Kreuz album, mastered at The Cage by ATTRITION‘s Martin Bowes, released 30 August 2025, and available from Bandcamp in vinyl LP, Double CD (including Bonus Remix CD), and digital download formats.

MUSIC

KEEP DANCING EP
Built from a collision of industrial synths, pounding rhythms, and enough grit to sandblast a concrete wall, the track charges forward with the urgency of someone who has checked the news once too often and decided the only reasonable response is to turn the volume up. What could have been a straightforward protest anthem instead becomes something far more effective: a dance floor rallying cry for people who are angry, exhausted, and somehow still willing to show up.
JammerzineGET IT HERE

SWAN GRINDER LP
“On latest album, Swan Grinder, Hills presents his most focused assault yet on societal complacency… Hills has carved out a distinctly antipodean take on industrial music, one that marries the confrontational spirit of crust punk with the mechanical brutality of EBM and harsh electronics. Swan Grinder… finds the Australian artist refining his “Industrial Synth Crust” formula whilst maintaining the politically charged urgency that defines his work… The project’s ethos… recalls the confrontational man + machine solo endeavour of Author & Punisher, whilst the samples and social commentary echo the energy of Ministry’s peak-era provocations. Yet Hills has forged something uniquely his own in that of a grinding, mechanised form, channelling environmental and political rage through distorted synthesisers and pummelling rhythms.”
Discipline MagGET IT HERE

Schkeuditzer Kreuz/Decide Today DIGITAL WOLVES split EP - - released 30/11/24
Digital Wolves sees Schkeuditzer Kreuz ... tackle standalone single ‘Choke’ on side A, showcasing the doomier domain of the post-industrial experimental project, and an assault on the ears comes with side B in the form of two confronting, abrasive, politically-charged numbers from ... Decide Today’s Worldwide Intifada EP; ‘Revolutionary Reason (Worldwide Intifada)’, and ‘The Shit Punx Hate 4’. The tracks see Inhuman lean into the industrial, breakcore, darkwave and ambient styling adopted by Decide Today following the end of the original Realicide band at the turn of 2011, while its subject matter maintains focus akin to anarcho-punk and radical hip-hop... Digital Wolves is dark, dangerous and deathly good.
ForteGET IT HERE

NO LIFE LEFT LP - Released 25/08/2023
“Album of the year, believe it! Schkeuditzer Kreuz is the king… What an album, one for the ages, one for the savages, the dancey, the punks and the goths and anyone else that wants to join the party. But an intense, action-packed and tremendous album, and one that is one of this year’s best.”
Devil’s Horns ZineGET IT HERE

Second Life: No Life Left Remixed - Released 03/12/2023
Remixes from No Life Left by:
Distruster
Max Rael
Creassault
Non-Bio
Crash-ScanSOLD OUT - DOWNLOAD IT HERE

Isolated and Alone LP - Released 14/12/2021
“Taking the politics and fury of d-beat and anarcho-punk, then blending them with treated vocals, harsh industrial synths and queasy dance-punk rhythms, Isolated And Alone is a terrifying yet enjoyable journey into the darkness of dehumanised, repressive society"
4ZZZSOLD OUT - DOWNLOAD IT HERE

UPCOMING SHOWS

Date	Venue/City/Country	Info/Tickets
11/07/2026	Diamond Dogs, Dapto	MSF benefit
02/10/2026	Earthdom - Tokyo, Japan
03/10/2026	Ochiai Soup - Tokyo, Japan
04/10/2026	TBC, Japan
06/10/2026	Sougen - Shizuoka, Japan
07/10/2026	Hokage - Osaka, Japan
08/10/2026	Atlantis Metal Bar - Siem Reap, Cambodia
09/10/2026	Distortion - Phnom Penh, Cambodia
10/10/2026	Yoda Gallery - Chiang Mai, Thailand
13/10/2026	Bangkok, Thailand
14/10/2026	Singapore TBC
15/10/2026	Loka Suara - Batam, Indonesia
16/10/2026	Moutou - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
17/10/2026	Bacolod, Philippines	BCHC Fest
18/10/2026	General Santos City, Philippines
19/10/2026	Davao City, Philippines
20/10/2026	Cebu City, Philippines
21/10/2026	Quezon City, Philippines
22/10/2026	Dasma, Cavite, Philippines
23/10/2026	Gimme Shelter - Bali, Indonesia
24/10/2026	Yogyakarta, Indonesia
25/10/2026	Purworejo, Indonesia
22/12/2026	Nambour, Australia

Merch

The third SK LP out August 30th 2025.

Cover Art by Art by Godwicked Studio
PRE-ORDER HERE

Second Pressing of the second SK LP.

Cover Art by Nesa at Doomsday Graphics
Released on Bad Habit RecordsBUY IT HERE

Split 7" with Decide Today.

Cover Art by Art by Godwicked Studio

BUY IT HERE

Two colour (white and grey are colours yeah?) AS Colour shirts
Print is from the Swan Grinder LP
Art by Godwicked Studio
Sizes S - XXXLWill be available for online purchase late January

Double sided shirts on AS Colour shirts

Front print is from the split record with Decide Today
Art by Godwicked Studio

Back print is a comment a random human made on one of my songs I put up on social media - immortalized on this lovely shirtSizes S - XXXLBUY IT HERE