From my perspective there are about five phases or enerations of musicians that make up the entire 'Industrial" scene as we know it.
In the beginning we had bands like Throbbing Gristle, Coil, SPK, Z'ev, Einstruzende Neubauten, Foetus, Nick Cave, Diamandas Galas, Psychic TV, Swans, marc Almond, Lydia Lunch, Tangerine Dream, Portion Control, Kraftwerk, Can, ClockDVA and Laibach. This period ran from around 1970 to around 1980.
Next we started to hear from bands like Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, Front 242, Ministry, Absolute Body Control, Vomito Negro, Neon Judgement and Luc van Acker. Basically anything that was released on Wax Trax in the early to mid-1980's.
Just as Wax Trax was dying, there was a huge upswing in Europe that in part to Talla XLC of Zoth Ommog Records, VUZ, Minus Habens, Machinery, and US labels like Cleopatra, Fifth Column, RAS DVA, Reconstriction, Decibel, COP, 21st Circuitry, Invisible, and Projekt. This was the Silver Age of the scene with bands touring all year long, large festivals starting to pop up all over Europe and mainstream media starting to take notice. You even had bands of the previous generation headlining festivals like Lollapalooza and signing to major labels. Then the bubble burst near the end of the .com boom and labels started to vanish just as quickly as they had arrived.
In the late 1990's the scene was trying to recover from the guitar infused coldwave nightmare of the previous years and ended up pushing more towards experiemental noise again. The rise of labels like Hands and Ant-Zen made noise so much more popular than ever before. Everyone was releasing crunchy music. At the same time electronic music was more popular in the mainstream than ever in major motion pictures, video games, dance clubs, commercials, muzak. Many labels rose and fall eventually settling on a handful like Metropolis, Dependent, Out of Line, Alfa Matrix, and others.
Right around the turn of the century people started getting up with all of the feedback and crunch and started to head the complete other direction. Future Pop was born. These bands had crisp clean beats, dance club appeal and for once a voclalist whose lyrics were meaningful and that stood out from the music. We are still in the middle of this phase of electronic music development. You can't escape a club playing music by these bands.
Of course, many bands crossed from phase to phase, either maintaining their same style and sound or trying to follow the latest trend. Bands like Front 242, FLA, Neubauten, Ministry and Coil are still releasing albums, some for more than 25 years.
If you prefer synthpop (including VNV Nation and Apoptygma Berzerk) I can also recommend Colony 5, also a rather new Swedish band.
