Machine Head
The Blackening

THE REVIEW

Rob Flynn had announced to the world that "The Blackening", the latest release from the American metal band Machine Head active since 1994, would go down in heavy metal history as the "Master Of Puppets" (historic Metallica album, the bible of thrash metal) of the new millennium.

The expectations for "The Blackening" were high, especially after a great, convincing, and compact album like "Through The Ashes Of Empires" which had revived Machine Head from the nu-metal parenthesis of the albums "The Burning Red" and "Supercharger", unfortunately, at least from my point of view, these expectations were not met. The album, despite the length of the songs, appears compact, but not enough for all 8 songs to be masterpieces on par with the aforementioned "Master Of Puppets", or at least excellent songs. The length of the songs is excessive, but not for the actual duration of the tracks (which isn't even that excessive), but for the band playing: indeed, no one expected from Machine Head two tracks over 9 minutes and others over 10, after all, it's not really a good novelty for a group that had always played a lot on impactful songs and therefore on shorter ones. On the contrary, among the album's merits is the new approach and attitude the guitars and riffs have in particular, with very good old-style "heavy" classicism (the nu-metal component evaporated), in short, Iron Maiden and especially Judas Priest dominate the guitars of these eight tracks that I am going to review.

01 "Clenching the Fists of Dissent": the first song of the new Machine Head album opens with a very good melodic arpeggio that soon turns into a pleasant thrash metal riff, very close to the band's first album (the superb "Burn My Eyes"), the first thing immediately noticeable is that Flynn has finally returned to shouting and singing in full Anselmo-style, eliminating all those pseudo-grunge moves and choruses that characterized "The Burning Red" and its successor "Supercharger". The song has nice rhythmic and very engaging melodic guitars, while around 6 minutes anthemic, epic choruses are introduced. In the final part, the song breaks down into calmer parts with "floating" atmospheres and pissed-off pure heavy-thrash riffs. All in all, it starts very well, despite the somewhat confusing and inconsistent songwriting.

Rating: 8

02 "Beautiful Morning": thick and "hard" guitars for "Beautiful Morning", scratchy singing, syncopated and at times very thrashy drum rhythm. The song has a somewhat weak and too melodic chorus, a track that at times recalls the band's crossover past, while in other moments the atmospheres approach Killswitch Engage's metalcore. At the end, the drums have a certain hardcore trend and there's good guitar work, ending in a much calmer way for a nice song, but nothing more.

Rating: 6.5

03 "Aesthetics of Hate": Another arpeggiated riff for the introduction of "Aesthetics Of Hate", a piece that owes much to Kerry King's and his Slayer's old-school thrash, although in the solos the guitars quickly move to melodic areas imagining angrier Maidens. Despite the decent drum work, the song remains rather anonymous and inconclusive, especially in the final part, where it becomes calmer and more cadenced.

Rating: 5.5

04 "Now I Lay Thee Down": very heavy and impactful main riff of the song, the singing is much more melodic than the previous three tracks, less screamed, Flynn gets "heavier" only in the chorus. The guitars initially become repetitive, but towards the middle of the song, they become more melodic and less monotonous, ending much "meaner" in line with the rest of the album.

Rating: 7

05 "Slanderous": the melodic introduction is in full Judas Priest style while the pace of the rest of the song is much closer to Pantera's "Vulgar Display Of Power" with very hard and heavy moments traceable to certain Swedish death metal. A quite good song also thanks to the interventions of "classic" guitars, which make the song very "rock-style".

Rating: 7.5

06 "Halo": another arpeggiated melodic opening for "Halo", a song with a strong "epic" taste in its initial part, thanks to the anthemic chorus and decent bass parts. The solos are banal and too "tied" to Judas Priest. If the song had ended at the 6-minute mark, it would've been very good, but the final part and the unexpected concluding outburst could have been spared.

Rating: 6.5

07 "Wolves": a now predictable and too long song at this point of the album, moving between classic guitars and "Pantera-like" hardness. The melodic riffs are nice, but essentially it's a track with a thousand riffs but little substance.

Rating: 6

08 "A Farewell to Arms": "liquid" guitars for the introduction of the song closing "The Blackening", an introduction with "alternative" shades, where the singing becomes much cleaner. A "mastodontic" piece exceeding 10 minutes, always balanced between melodic calm, epic atmospheres, and heavier moments. As with the opener, in 10 minutes they intended to play all their influences (from thrash to classic heavy passing through a certain alternative vein), creating a kind of cauldron, which however is quite convincing.

Rating: 7.5

In conclusion, the album also features good tracks and electrifying moments, nonetheless its predecessor "Through The Ashes of Empires" had convinced much more and it's worth noting that between "Master of Puppets" and "The Blackening" there's a sea.