Rather than leave everyone on that, I figured it was time to talk about the album by Machine Head that got me into them. Hold on to your hats, people, you've got a nostalgia trip all the way back...to September 2011.
So, I'd just arrived at where I would be living while I was at college. I was a naive 18 year old, with terrible hair, an inability to grow a decent looking beard and glasses strong enough to be able to start a fire. And, on one of my quiet days before college was due to start, when my metal knowledge mostly extended to the Big 4 of thrash metal and bits of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, I decided to pick up a copy of Anthrax's then just released album Worship Music and Alice Cooper's then just released sequel to Welcome To My Nightmare, Welcome 2 My Nightmare. While glancing through the store, I happened to spot a fan pack for Machine Head's album "Unto The Locust". Vaguely curious (and disappointed that the albums I was looking for had not arrived in store yet), I went back to my flat, booted up the internet and looked up the band. Liking what I heard about them, I returned a little later in the week to the store and picked up a copy of "Unto The Locust". It was with some concern that I placed the album into my (sadly now non-functioning) CD player and, laying on my bed in the darkness of my room (I'd forgotten to open my curtains), heard the opening of "I Am Hell".
And it blew my mind.
Fast forward to today. I'm a slightly less naive 20 year old, with terrible hair, an inability to grow a decent looking beard and glasses strong enough to be able to start a fire. I have listened to over two hundred albums (most of which are sitting on my desk, ordered by genre), sampled just about type of metal music out there and found what I like and don't like from them, rediscovered my folk roots after having ignored them for at least two years and yet I still love this album. Even in Machine Head's complete discography, I would place this at the top, over both The Blackening and Burn My Eyes in quality (with bottom place being a fight between The Burning Red and Supercharger...although I do think they have a few interesting tracks on them, so I can't say that I think they're completely terrible).
Now, most will look at that statement and laugh. But I'm being completely serious. Must be the nostalgia kicking in? Well, let's see...
Machine Head, formed in 1991 by ex-Vio-lence guitarist Robb Flynn and now ex-bassist Adam Duce, are a band who manage to sit in the odd position of being a band who get panned to a ridiculous extent by their detractors, yet also get an extreme amount of praise by their fans. It's very hard to find someone with an opinion on them that isn't extreme love or hatred. Well, now you've found one. With the exception of this album, I'm mostly indifferent to the band: The Blackening struck me as a poor attempt to add prog elements to the band's sound (tip for songwriters: writing long songs does not make you a prog band, technical ability does) while Burn My Eyes has always seemed to be a bit overrated to me, although I'd be lying if I said I was a fan of groove metal by any real measure. The Burning Red and Supercharger had me lost before I even heard them, as I cannot stand nu metal at the best of times. The More Things Change is an album I rarely listen to and The Ashes Of Empires, while possessing one of my favourite Machine Head tracks ("Days Turn Blue To Grey"), never really did anything for me. However, the key point is that, with the exception of The Burning Red and Supercharger, none of the albums did anything that I outright disliked: there was always something that was interesting about them that stopped me from becoming angry with them. While I do consider their nu metal era to be a bad idea, I wouldn't say that they're outright terrible albums, as they do have some interesting moments if you can stomach the fact that it's nu metal. So, you would have been right to have assumed that, had I not heard Unto the Locust first, Machine Head would simply not have been a band I would have found worth paying a huge amount of attention to: they never did anything amazing, but they never did anything terrible either. So what did they do here that brings out my inner fanboy? Quite a lot, actually!
Right off the bat, one of the things most people will notice on their first listen through is that all of the guys are doing more complicated stuff in their music. Apparently, all of the guys took lessons on their instruments before going into the studio to record the album, and I'd be lying if I said I couldn't see it. You can hear that Robb has more of a range to his vocals on this album, as his main vocals have an edge to them that wasn't completely there on The Blackening, and he does some incredibly good death growls at a few points in the album. His clean vocals seem a bit more confident as well, but I can't help thinking they were under-utilised across the album. I know that his clean vocals aren't a huge part of the band's sound, but the only track on which he really demonstrates them to their full strength is the acoustic version of "Darkness Within" (only available on the special edition of the album). Admittedly, the guy's clean vocals are not brilliant by any measure (there's no real power behind his clean vocals and they can come across as a bit whiny if you look at them from some angles), so maybe that's not as good an idea as I'm making it out to be. Anyway, the drumming has also stepped up a level. Dave McClain never struck me as a brilliant drummer of their previous albums (although definitely not a bad one: I just never felt he did anything that special with the kit), but he is a hell of a lot better here, almost to the point that I'd say you can hear him tapping into thrash drumming here (which makes sense: the guy did used to drum for Sacred Reich before he joined Machine Head). The guitar playing of both Robb and Phil Demmel is just fantastic, easily some of the best guitar playing I've heard on any thrash (admittedly, it's fairly groovy thrash, but I find this has more in common with thrash than with groove metal, so I'm counting it as thrash) album released in the 2000's. While Phil's solos don't get to the same level of technicality that you'd expect from Testament's Alex Skolnick or Annihilator's Jeff Waters, they're definitely not to be sniffed at, with more than a hint of melody underpinning his solos. I don't think you could whistle his solos in the shower after your first listen to them, but they're certainly memorable if that's the kind of thing you enjoy. Now ex-bassist Adam Duce doesn't really get an opportunity to shine, but he does his job nicely, which is to provide a solid low end. He does suffer from the curse of being a metal bassist in that his actual playing is rather tough to hear on low volumes, which is a pet peeve of mine, as a learning bassist and a guy who doesn't think playing a record at deafening volumes is a good idea. Say what you will about prog metal, but at least the bassist is perfectly audible on the studio albums of most prog metal bands without needing to deafen yourself in an attempt to hear it!
So, from that, you'd think that I'm deliberately avoiding talking about the songwriting, right? Am I deliberately doing it because the actual songs are bad? Of course not! The only song I'd say could have done with some extra work is "Pearls Before The Swine", as it doesn't really do anything to launch itself into your memory. Other than that? It's all good, my friends.
First up is a metal sonata entitled "I Am Hell". Now, I don't know a lot about classical music, so I don't know how closely to typical sonatas Machine Head stick, but it's clearly divided into three parts and all three parts are distinctive in their own right, so I'm going to assume they followed it pretty closely. The intro bit is suitably atmospheric, with Robb sounding almost possessed at points (just listen to those death growls underneath his normal vocals) and, after an admittedly metalcore sounding riff in the build up, hits with a powerful riff that should have all but the most extreme metal fans wowed. The clean vocals aren't brilliant in this section, but they do help build up the atmosphere of the track, so I can't really complain too much. The second bit of the sonata kicks off with some very technical thrashy riffing that still has a base in Machine Head's groovy sound before continuing with a riff that makes me think a little bit of something you'd expect to come out of the death metal scene. Robb's vocals are strong in the verses, but I think they lack something in terms of being memorable up until the pre-chorus starts. Once that does and the chorus hits, you'll probably be singing along all day, and all tied together withs some cool guitar soloing. If I had one complaint, I think Robb's vocals in one little part of the song could have done with some extra work (namely, the first time he sings "In the ashes of your immolation"), although that's not a major complaint considering how strong the rest of the section is. The little section between what I'm assuming is the start of the last part of the track and the end of this one (which I'm assuming is the acoustic guitar section) has a rather dark riff that again harkens back to a vaguely metalcore sound, but I think it works nicely here. The last section starts with an acoustic guitar playing and then following with a electric guitar solo over a small bit of music before fading out. Normally, I'm not fond of this kind of thing, but it's pretty nicely connected to the previous section. It also avoids doing what Metallica did on "The Day That Never Comes", as it doesn't feel like a jam session that was left on to pad out the song. All told, it's a very cool song that is a strong opener to the album. A few minor flaws stop me from saying it's a classic song, but it's definitely not a weak track by any measure!
Next up is "Be Still And Know", which also opens with a fairly complicated riff (if you think Machine Head can't write a complicated riff, try this one on for size) along with some somewhat atmospheric drumming. That's a word I'm going to be using a fair bit on this album for a reason: this album has an actual atmosphere compared to The Blackening. I would say that the best comparison is Ride The Lightning compared to Master Of Puppets: while the latter is the album that has a huge amount of respect from the bands fans and is commonly held to be one of their best, the more atmospheric sound on the former makes me love it more than the other album. It's the same kind of thing here: while The Blackening is considered one of the best metal albums released in the 2000's (rather unjustly, in my opinion), this album has an edge to it that The Blackening doesn't thanks to the use of atmospherics that just win me over very quickly. Anyway, the main riff is nothing really special, but it's very cool. Robb does write a pretty cool verse here, but the pre-chorus and chorus really help kick this song up a notch. As much as most people will despise me for saying this, a good song (note the word "song", not "tune": instrumentals run on different rules) needs a hook to build up to for the chorus: if you don't have anything to build up to, then you're likely to not be producing a good song. There are exceptions ("Bohemian Rhapsody" springs to mind at the minute), but the point is that being able to write a good hook for your song isn't unique to pop musicians: a song without a hook is likely to sail past you, no matter how many times you listen to it and what genre of music it is. The guitar solo is very neat and, by comparison to "I Am Hell", this track is almost simple. There is a section between the guitar solo and the final verse that has more than a few prog leanings, but, for the most part, this song doesn't have that many twists and turns. Whether you'll like that or not will depend on your thoughts on "Locust": if you found that too simple, this is probably not going to do much for you, but, if you liked it, you'll probably love this. Speaking of which...
The third track, and first single, is "Locust". This is about the closest we get to a title track for this album, so you can expect this to be the least complicated track on the album (since, apparently, you're meant to release the song that's most likely to get airplay or is most like the typical sound of the album as a single for an album, which often means the song that is the most simple and/or immediately catchy, which is quite funny when you realise this is the second longest song of the album...). And, well, this is actually pretty accurate! The song opens with some rather atmospheric guitar. At this point, you will probably notice a bit of a formula: atmospheric intro, heavy verses, catchy chorus, great solo. That's honestly pretty accurate for a fair bit of the album, but hey, do you see people disliking Slayer for basically trying to rewrite Seasons In The Abyss for the last three albums? If a formula works, not a lot of point in knocking it, is there? Anyway, you've pretty much got what I've said happening with this track, and it doesn't even have any real prog twists to throw you off guard a bit (although the clean vocals before the guitar solo are a nice touch). Since prog isn't normally my kind of thing, it probably won't surprise anyone to know that this is probably my favourite track on the album, although I do really like all of the tracks apart from "Pearls Before The Swine" (don't worry, I'll get to that). This is probably the best track to introduce yourself to the album, so here's the video if you want to check it out.
The next track is "This Is The End", which seems a bit odd to be placed in the middle of the album: with a title like that, why not place it at the end of the record, especially considering this isn't a rock opera or a concept album where it might make sense to do that? I know I'm nitpicking, but seriously, it just seems like a strange decision! Anyway, the formula I mentioned for "Locust" is definitely noticeable here as well, so this is another track worth checking out if you liked "Locust". It does have another section before the guitar solo that does seem slightly out of place, but the transition is nicely handled, not to mention it's cool to hear Robb doing his death growls here. The intro is really cool as well: a bit of acoustic guitar playing that has a slight lean towards classical guitar playing (which is basically like a more complex version of what you'd expect from folk singer-songwriters like Nick Drake). If I did have one complaint regarding the song, I do think it ends a bit prematurely, but that's probably deliberate when you consider what the next track is...
The fifth track on the album, "Darkness Within", throws us a bit of a curveball in that it has Robb singing cleanly for the first verse and chorus, not his typical roar. While I wouldn't say Robb is a great clean singer, he delivers the first verse and chorus pretty well, all things considered. The rest of the song definitely goes back into the formula a little bit, which honestly annoys me a bit, having heard the acoustic version. I'm not going to say that the electric version is completely worse than the acoustic version, but the more emotional aspect of the song is lost when Robb returns to his usual vocal style in the song and the electric guitars kick in. A tip to remember for songwriters reading this review: a ballad is not automatically made better by adding electric guitars to it. If the song doesn't call for them, don't add them! Anyway, rant aside, it's a cool song that you'll probably like if you don't mind metal ballads and enjoyed "Locust", but I'd recommend sticking with the acoustic version if you're listening to it online, as you'll probably enjoy it more than the actual album version. I'll provide links to both the music video version of the song and the acoustic version of the track under here, so give both a listen and see whether you think I'm right or far from the mark.
(Album Version)
(Acoustic Version)
The sixth track is the oddity on the album, "Pearls Before The Swine". Now, if I remember what I read in the fan pack correctly, this song felt to the band like two songs put together and even they weren't sure whether it was going to be a good song or not, as they didn't think it was a weak song, but it felt very weird to them due to how it was structured. Which has me wondering why they didn't make it a b-side to their single instead of putting it on the album, but I guess releasing a six track album, no matter how long the songs are, would have been seen as lazy. This honestly has a pretty powerful opening riff and the main riff of the song is very strong, but I have to say that this song is a bit of a mess compared to everything else on the album. This is very much a case of attempting to do a progressive-influenced song for the sake of doing a progressive-influenced song: the song doesn't flow especially well and it feels like the band didn't completely think the song through, as it's very hard to really see why some of the sections match up to each other. There are some good moments that would have produced a good song if they'd been thought up in separate tracks and the chorus is very strong, but I can't really say this is a song that's worth checking out if you haven't listened to this album before now. It's not a bad track if you can accept the fact it's not got a great flow, but, when you compare it to the rest of the tracks on the album, you can hear that it's just not on the same level as the other tracks. Interesting fact: according to setlist.fm, this song has only been performed live twice (and both times in June 2012) so it's officially the least played track from the album. You may draw your own conclusions...
The final track is "Who We Are". I have to be honest, I do know that the children singing in the introduction are the kids of the band, but I think that their addition to the song is completely unnecessary. It might have been intended to be creepy or cute, but I just don't think it works in either case, especially when Robb starts singing in his usual voice and blows any real build up that could have come from that out of the window. You could reasonably have cut them singing and had the section where they sung as a quiet build up, or done what Robb did later and have him sung the intro in his clean vocals, and I'd have said it would have been better. However, the rest of the song is still very good, although definitely still following the formula you've probably noticed from "Locust". If you don't mind the children singing, this song should still appeal to you if you enjoyed "Locust".
Since I've mentioned the formula several times, I will say this now: if you don't like music that has a formula, then this album can still appeal to you. I point it out not because it's so formulaic that it will bug you, but because you do realise it's there when you really stop and look at it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, however: some bands (like Motorhead and AC/DC) have pretty much released the same album throughout their career and it's hard to deny that there is clearly a formula to their music, yet they still write some fantastic songs that, if you like their formula, will have you love them. Also, I'll admit that I've ignored some of the slightly more prog influenced sections of the album because I've spotted the formula. So, even if you don't like music with a formula, I still recommend giving "Locust" a listen to at least give yourself an idea of whether you'd like this album or not. If you do like it and want to hear four slightly more prog influenced versions of the song, then you should pick it up. If not...well, at least you gave "Locust" a listen and fairly judged whether you could enjoy the album or not from that.
I'm not going to review the bonus tracks, as the version of the album I've got doesn't have them. However, I can mention that I have checked out their cover of Judas Priest's "The Sentinel" and the acoustic version of "Darkness Within" (which I mentioned earlier is better than the album version). The cover of "The Sentinel" is nothing special, if I'm honest, but I will say that Robb did a very good job on the vocals when you consider he mostly does the song in his typical vocal style. It's otherwise a faithful cover of the original song. It's pretty much what you'd expect a cover of "The Sentinel" by Machine Head to sound like, nothing more and nothing less. Whether you like that or not will ultimately come down to your thoughts on Robb's vocals, which are a downgrade compared to Halford's...but, really, just about every vocalist out there is a downgrade compared to Halford in his prime, so that probably won't surprise anyone.
Unto The Locust is, overall, a very solid listen if you don't mind a bit of formula and aren't opposed to some groove metal influence. It's hardly flawless, but there's a lot to enjoy about this album. If you've not checked it out before now, give a listen to "Locust" and see what you make of it.
Overall rating: 8.5 out of 10
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