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Machine Head: The Blackening Groove Metal, Melodic Metalcore, Post-Thrash Roadrunner Records March 27th, 2007
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Review
The Blackening marks for an official return to the band's original sound. While Through The Ashes Of The Empires was the place where the music began to kick back to the olden days of the band, it's this release where the music becomes the tightest that it ever has been, leaving fans of the band with open arms and a loving embrace. There are still some people that put this album down, but for most, it's simply because they cannot look through the band's past and at what the band has presented with this release. While it's not the greatest album on the face of the planet, it's a dramatic change that embraces almost everything that the band has slaved over all these years. Right off the start, the track "Clening The Fists Of Dissent" starts off slow but, when the track kicks in, really pushes forward with a nice Thrash sound meshed with Groove, much like a heavier, more solid sounding version of earlier Machine Head. As the album progresses, however, you see a little more to the music then just that epic, group chant fueled sermon. The Mallcore sound isn't completely dead within the band yet, but they have managed to weave some of it's stand out elements into this sound. Take a look at "Beautiful Moourning" for proof, with the way the chorus is performed, being a somewhat lighter sound with vocals processed to sound more innocent then anything when being sung. One of the standout points of this release, though, has got to be the guitar solos. Some of them will give listeners a feeling of early Annihilator guitar solos, though nowhere near as technical or fast, such as on "Aesthetics Of Hate", which, sadly, starts to drag on one you get a little past five and a half minutes into the song due to the guitar echoing out with such an irritating high pitch distortion and what sounds to be like heartbeat drums. While these killer guitar solos do hit every song on the album, it can't really save all of them from a mediocre sound. As mentioned, the drawn out ending of "Now I Lay Thee Down To Sleep" is annoying, and is about where the album starts to become rather bland. First of all, that song sounds more like a Metalcore track laced with some melody to try to drive the song home, which works but contradicts the first three songs and the flow of the album. And then you have the song "Slanderous" which is absolutely lame lyrically with the guitar solo being the only stand out thing about it, really. Sadly, the end of the album basically follows the formula of Thrash, Groove, and melodic Metalcore, which isn't too bad since the music still sounds good, but aside the aforementioned two tracks that kind of bring the album down, as well as the closing track "A Farewell To Arms", The Blackening is a decent album, and easily one of the best releases by Machine Head.
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