With his new album, Spire of Fear, dropping August 15th, King Yosef announces the "Industrial Worship Tour," a coast-to-coast tour of the US, featuring Youth Code, Street Sects, and Insula Iscariot.
Both championed as artists on the forefront of industrialized hardcore, King Yosef's connection to Youth Code dates back at least to 2021 when the two artists teamed up to release the collaborative LP, A Skeleton Key in the Doors of Depression. Youth Code's new 2025 EP, Yours, With Malice, is out now on Sumerian Records, described by Kerrang! as "suffocating, cathartic and uplifting." Likewise, Street Sects are another group mixing the sonic palette of industrial music with the raw confessions of hardcore punk, while Insula Iscariot, signed to King Yosef's Bleakhouse label, delivers an unnerving brand of harsh EBM.
Kicking off August 16th in Seattle – one day after the release of Spire of Fear – the "Industrial Worship Tour" is 2025's ultimate package of electronic-based devastation. It is a must-see for fans of the harder side of industrial and the more experimental side of hardcore.
Initially earning acclaim as a hip-hop producer, Portland, Oregon-based auteur Tayves Yosef Pelletier has been self-releasing music under the King Yosef name since 2017. Having worked with some of the most notorious rappers of the 2010s, he founded the King Yosef solo project as a space in which to explore his other musical obsessions. As King Yosef, Pelletier has been gradually perfecting a searing brand of industrialized hardcore that marries electronic and metallic elements in stunning fashion and seeks catharsis through deeply personal lyrics.
Within the past two years, a transition has occurred; the intensity has ramped up sharply. Pelletier has transformed King Yosef from a bedroom project into a formidable live act, completing North American tours with the likes of Converge and HEALTH and venturing to Australia, Japan, Europe and the UK. Playing the coveted Roadburn in 2024, King Yosef received these words from the festival's organizers: "A dizzying yet coherent amalgam of sticky beats, chilling interludes and scathing vitriol... As a festival, we like to push boundaries and embrace heavy music in all its forms. We see a kindred spirit in King Yosef."
"The role of King Yosef in my life transformed," states Pelletier, "from a place I went when I was waiting for production projects to release, to becoming my main source of creative fulfillment."
Now, in the summer of 2025, Spire of Fear marks the next chapter. Written, produced, and performed by Pelletier, Spire of Fear was recorded and mixed at the legendary GodCity Studio with longtime King Yosef collaborators Kurt Ballou and Zach Weeks. The album was mastered by Alan Douches. Comprising King Yosef's most gentle and most lethal work to date, the album synthesizes Pelletier's wide array of influences, a list that includes artists ranging from Godflesh and Nails, to Portishead, Aphex Twin, and The Stone Roses.
Where the previous album, An Underlying Hum, dug into Pelletier's own personal story, Spire of Fear looks beyond the self, toward broader human experience: "Zooming out of the context of your own life, you realize that things have gone on before you and will go on after. So as long as you can face something head on and move through it, you’re probably going to be alright and the path shows itself from there."
The selflessness of Spire of Fear is reflected in Pelletier's real-life actions of the past two years. Through tireless work, Pelletier has risen to become a central figure of the Portland, Oregon scene, building a community of musicians and artists around his label, Bleakhouse, and his annual festival, Bleakfest. He refers to Spire of Fear as "a community-based record."
Following the "Industrial Worship Tour," King Yosef plays two West Coast dates in November with the mighty Author & Punisher.
"Industrial Worship Tour" – Youth Code, King Yosef, Street Sects, Insula Iscariot:
Aug 16 - Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou's
Aug 18 - Midvale, UT @ The Pearl on Main
Aug 19 - Denver, CO @ HQ
Aug 21 - St Paul, MN @ Turf Club
Aug 23 - Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge
Aug 24 - Ferndale, MI @ Loving Touch
Aug 26 - Cambridge, MA @ Sonia
Aug 27 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Meadows
Aug 28 - Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts
Aug 29 - Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar
Aug 31 - Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
Sep 02 - Dallas, TX @ RBC
Sep 03 - Austin, TX @ 29th Street Ballroom
Sep 05 - Phoneix, AZ @ Rosetta
Sep 06 - Las Vegas, NV @ Backstage Bar
Sep 07 - Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex
Sep 08 - San Francisco, CA @ TBA
Author & Punisher, King Yosef:
Nov 12 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
Nov 13 - San Diego, CA @ Casbah
Author & Punisher, King Yosef:
Nov 12 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
Nov 13 - San Diego, CA @ Casbah
Photo of Youth Code, by Atiba Jefferson
Photo of King Yosef, by Harper King