All is not well. Hmmm kind of an apt title for this collage of an album. The Machinist that recorded the album are not to be confused with the Manchester band of the same name, which is what I fear I did when I threw my cap in the ring.
This trio come from New York City and have made a hodgepodge collection of songs that mixes Nu Metal, Deathcore and Alt Metal with melodic elements. It makes me feel like an old man (OK Gen Xer) as my ears pick out each borrowed riff and influence from the tracks and I become an old man shaking my fist at my stereo.
Just for a minute – or 34 minutes – I will listen with fresh ears to what the Machinist have brought to the table.
Opener “PIG” is angry. This is post George Floyd and BLM Nu Hardcore with a slight Hot Topic edge. Anthrax once wrote a song about Rage Against the Machine entitled Packaged Rebellion and this fits the bill. However, what better way to get subversive and rebellious messages about power imbalance and injustice than consumer friendly mall core. Kids aren’t gonna leap straight into Discharge and Conflict. The hooks are big and groovy and would have made Adidas trackpants flap about in the late 90’s. Amanda Gjelaj has good rasps, screams and cleans sounding appropriately angry. “Mother Earth” adds a lil bit of Voivod proggyness into the mix and some big breakdowns that are pretty chuggy whilst the title track is almost danceable in its melodic deathcore way. I am a few listens into this album and it is growing on me like a monkeypox wart. Gjelaj offers up some deep Death Metal gutturals here as well as some Dani Filth style screeches – both work pretty well.
Even on an album which mixes things up as it does “Hourglass” sounds like a curveball offering up, as it does, Evanescence style mush. This is the kind of stuff I had to play on the radio in the early noughties. History really is repeating hey Boomer Matt?
Things skip back to the other side of that decade with “The Final Encounter” and we are back to Nu influenced Deathcore with bits of knuckle-dragging brocore dropped in – it’s pretty fun if I am honest and the melodic clean vocals kinda work in response to the low brow, low end gutturals. “Deaths Embrace” has some melodic death metal passages which widdle in all the right places but again is a little trite but there are some pretty chunky passages in here and the drum hits like a brick to the face – this cliché thing is catching.
“Lysergic Lullaby” is more progressive and shows its workings from past works by Gojira and Loathe and will probably satisfy fans of both. “Monsters” is a another “fuck you I’m not cleaning my bedroom” track full of piss and pickled onion monster munch and maybe a lunchable. It’s a bit like “Guided by Angels” by Amyl and the Sniffers covered by angry suburban mallkids. It’s fun and dumb and that is a good thing. Final track “Letter in Red” keeps the rage going and I feel like a tourist marvelling at a scene I vaguely recognise but should not be part of.
The Machinist make loud, angry music with parts stolen from their ‘rents and a few angular pieces of scrap. It’s fun and frenetic (apart from Hourglass) and I bet young un’s love it. Surely that is good enough?
(6.5/10 Matt Mason)
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