Machine Head are my favourite band. This is getting harder to defend as the years go on. While I'll defend Catharsis (2018) as the fifth-best Machine Head album to my dying day (or they release a better one), the years since have been rough, to say the least: From the whole band quitting in less than amicable circumstances, to recruiting a (now departed) accused (but by no means "acquitted") gang-rapist, who never really seemed like he was in the band anyway, to releasing "shotgun blast"-themed whisky that you shot yourself in the face with, after (rather understandably, I think) swearing off the band's trademark song, from which the related lyric derives, because of the prevalence of modern gun violence, to hearing Robb Flynn's voice deteriorate in real time and watching the band go from headlining major festival stages all over the world to be billed below In This Moment, and now they're releasing random WWE clip packages, set to one of their worst songs amid all that company's controversies... it's been tough time to be a Machine Head fan. ALSØ, THEY WRITE LIKE THIS NØW, FØR SØME REASØN.
As for the music... Well, when we last left off, it was with an extremely unremarkable, anime-inspired concept album that everyone (else) initially hailed as the second-coming of The Blackening (2007), before immediately forgetting about it, along with all the embarrassingly sub-par standalone singles they'd released beforehand, and whose best song was literally just "Clenching the Fists of Descent" played at half-speed. Now, here we are with Unatoned, which draws obvious parallels to its predecessor—sharing a cover artist in Septicflesh's Spiros Antoniou, along with it's awkward typeface—but which has more in common, sound wise, with the much-derided Catharsis and Supercharger (2001) than Of Kingdom and Crown (2022) or The Blackening. And you know what? I kind of like it!
On it's surface, Unatoned appears to be s a pretty terrible record. It's been waning for some time now, but Robb's voice is undeniably shot to hell here, and—as fun as some of the riffs are—most of them are largely rudimentary and the band's trademark harmonics are beyond overused at this point. "Bleeding Me Dry", moreover, directly lifts the descending harmonic section from "Locust", and—while Machine Head are no strangers to re-using a riff or two (at the exact same second in the song, no less!)—if I'm going to ding "Slaughter the Martyr" for its slowed-down similarities to "Clenching the Fists of Descent", then "Addicted to Pain" is just "Halo" sped up, and "Scars and Shattered Dreams" also briefly nicks the thrash-break from "Imperium" as well. Flynn also often resorts to the same, frantic, quasi-rap delivery for many of the verses, and many of the lyrics also seem trite. "These Scars Won't Define Us" is the umpteenth song the band have written about music "saving their soul", while otherwise compelling opener "Atomic Revelations" feels beyond outdated in delivering the kind of nuclear apocalypse narrative thrash bands have been rehashing for over four decades at this point.
Nevertheless, while its songs might max out at being shadows of the band's former glories, it's the newer elements that have the potential to cause the most offense. The rest of "Bleeding Me Dry" is a sullen, electronic-backed, almost trapish reminiscence on drug dealing that hardly rises to the stupidity of "Triple Beam" or genuine menace of "I'm Your God Now", while "Dustmaker" is an extremely superfluous, two-minute-long (likely anime-inspired), almost trip-hop-sounding, bass interlude, and "Landscape of Thorns" is the same, pointless, walking-down-a-hall intro tracks they were trotting out on the previous record, but at least this time there's only one of them. "Bonescraper" is also built around the kind of "woah" most people blame on Imagine Dragons these days and "Addicted to Pain" is backed by the kind of DJ scratching riser effect Slipknot used a quarter of a Decade ago on "People=Shit", when Machine Head themselves were deep within their long-disavowed, first flirtations with nu metal. Turns out the song was actually penned by new (or should that be nu?) guitarist Reece Scruggs (ex-Havok), after being challenged to "write a nu-metal song". As far as the challenge goes, he knocked it out of the park, but you won't be finding any of the tasty Metallica-meets-Death moments that made his old band’s last full-length such a stand out making their way over here, unfortunately. And yet...
While I more or less dismissed Of Kingdom and Crown upon first listen, and have only found it less appealing upon rare revisits, to the point where I have no problem declaring it the worst (or at least my least favourite) Machine Head album, I found myself curiously drawn to Unatoned. What was initially perhaps just rubbernecking grew into a genuine fondness for and compulsive revisiting of the record. So I did what I always do when this happens; I rewired it:
- "Landscape of Thorns"
- "Outsider"
- "Atomic Revelations"
- "Dustmaker"
- "Unbound"
- "Bonescraper"
- "Scorn"
- "Bleeding Me Dry"
- "These Scars Won't Define Us"
- "Shards of Shattered Dreams"
- "Addicted to Pain"
- "Not long for This World"
I'm not entirely convinced by this re-ordering, but it's amazing how far book-ending the record with stronger and more unique tracks like "Outsider"—which is built around a sickening melodic chorus—and "Not Long for This World"—which builds to the kind of string-backed crescendo that only Parkway Drive have otherwise ever really got to work—goes toward alleviating its more obvious offenses. "Unbound" and "Bonescraper" also work a lot better having already set the mood for them. "These Scars Won't Define Us" might merely be Machine Head by numbers, but it nails the brief harder than the many others that have attempted it (even if it only seems to retain a dialed back version of Christina Scabia's vocal harmonies from the absolutely chaotic In Flames, Unearth and Lacuna Coil collaboration that was initially unleashed upon us). These are all still probably the three weakest tracks on the record, saving the interlude(s), and I wish I had some of the stronger material to embed here instead. Had Machine Head led with songs like "Outsider", "Addicted to Pain" or even "Atomic Revelations", then the expectations around this album might be a lot more anticipatory than apprehensive.
The album also really comes alive on headphones. Like Of Kingdom and Crown and Catharsis before it, Unatoned was produced by Flynn and unsung engineer extraordinaire Zack Ohren (Fallujah, Immolation, Warbringer), in collaboration with Jordan Fish (Architects, Ring Me the Horizon) and programmer Joel Wanasek, and mixed by the mighty Colin Richardson—as have all of the bands previous albums, save Unto the Locust (2011). If you can say nothing else for those albums, they sound absolutely incredible, and Unatoned is no different. Every instrument is perfectly balanced in the mix for maximum impact, and listening on headphones, where you can parse all the different layers and harmonies, also does wonders for the vocals, to the point that Flynn's impassioned croaks become charming, or at least compelling within their context—even if they'd probably sound better in the in the well-preserved throat of someone like Testament's Chuck Billy. It's electronic departures are distinctive, but also a lot more subtle and cohesively integrated than they first appear, and all of the album's potentially eyebrow-raising departures are more than balanced-out by an underpinning of masterful groove-metal that owes as much to mid-period Sepultura as Machine Head's own legacy. And those fucking guitar tones man!
In its original form, Unatoned is an absolute mess, but there are nuggets to be found among its seemingly barren wastes. With a bit of work, the album can truly come alive, and I urge you to listen to it through headphones, in the order I've suggested above, before writing it off. The best moments here are far better than anything on Of Kingdom and Crown, along with the bulk of Bloodstone & Diamonds (2014), The Burning Red (1999) and maybe even The More Things Change (1997)—even if they can't match the best of what those albums have to offer. ...But not Catharsis though, let's not get crazy here. What initially felt—and still feels—so refreshing to me about that record, was that it had its own identity, it took risks and the band sounded like they were having fun again after what felt like an inferior rehash of The Blackening's by-then burnt-out template. In many ways, Unatoned repeats that process with regard to Of Kingdom and Crown, and while it might not be that the band are back to peak performance, it's refreshing to see them take some risks again and with a bit—ok, a lot—of refinement there might be hope for us Machine Head fans yet.