Music review: Machine Head - Unto The Locust

Machine Head – Unto The Locust

Here’s a much anticipated album around the whole world, and I can’t say that I’ve been one of those who weren’t looking forward to this one. After “The Blackening” in 2007 and four long years of waiting, Machine Head’s next album was something of a betting object – will it kick just as much ass, even more, or suck the fucking ass in its mouth of brown doom? Here’s my opinion:

The debut single “Locust” got released quite a while a back and my first thought was that it wasn’t “The Blackening”-material, but this is a NEW album after all and I had to look that way. I was however pretty pist off because the single was released (note: as an “Advance Mix”) something like 3-4 MONTHS before the actual album. What the fuck is THAT bullshit?? Are we gonna have to wait THAT fucking long!?!? Honestly I don’t think that really boosts the selling of the album … 3-4 FUCKING MONTHS BEFORE THE ACTUAL RELEASE!! GODDAMMIT!! WHO PRE-ORDERS THAT EARLY ANYWAY?? FUCK EVERYONE THAT WAS INTO RELEASING THE INFO SO EARLY!! FUUUUUCK YOU!!!! I hate record labels … They often steal money from the bands and artists as well … and I hate WAITING THAT FUCKING LONG!! … Okay, sorry. Enough already. Anyway, this single did, as I say, not really catch my interest just as much as “The Blackening” (and “Burn My Eyes” as well for that matter) did. I also read sometime, somewhere that Robb Flynn was the one producing. However, I thought the song’s production sounded pretty awful. Everything sounded kinda soaked (like bad mp3 files do). That made me somewhat worried for the album, but back to this later!  The song itself, in my opinion, sounded slightly more to the “Through The Ashes Of Empires” way, which is negative as I don’t think that album is nearly as good as either “Burn My Eyes” or “The Blackening”. But all I could do was waiting …

And then finally! The album was released now and wow … the album … it’s GREAT! The opening track “I Am Hell” (which btw is three musical pieces in one) wasn’t really the most catchy opening track I’ve heard, but musically it gave me a lotta hope for the rest of the album. It featured some laid-back keyboards and some church-singing-like (whatever it’s called …) opening. It’s also very heavy right on with great guitar harmony. The solo is also another nice MH-double lead. “Be Still And Know” immediately reminds me of some great, old 80’s metal. I can’t put my finger on which band in particular, but I think it’s to the Priest and Maiden direction. Awesome song, to say at least. Then it’s “Locust” and I said we’re getting back to that. The final production was NOT that same soaked shit, it’s actually thicker and heavier than “The Blackening” and I prefer this production. Now I’ve also become to love the song in time, so it’s a solid one but however boring to discuss in a topic. “This Is The End” is perfect in the middle section. It sounds like another fan-favorite-live to become. “Darkness Within” – dig the title, hate the song. Someone in the band, probably Robb or Dave, said in an interview recently that their label had said something like, “if you have something suitable for radio, we’d like to take it there” (oh I ain’t surprised … go independent everyone and let the greedy bastards rot!). To this, Robb or Dave responded something like “we don’t do music for radio…” and so on, but I can SWEAR that this could go there any day! I completely HATE the first three minutes of the song. To me it’s a pop tune. The rest is solid though with a nice solo. “Pearls Before The Swine” is another tune that once again reminds me of the good old 80’s in a modern form. I like the song, but it’s not really anything special. The most heavy oriented piece on the album and the middle section is awesome. It’s a clean guitar-harmony thing before the song speeds up quite a bit. “Who We Are” – starts off with a children’s choir before the beast called Machine Head is born once more. The melody in choir sings in (the chorus btw) is nice, but the choir is pretty awful and very off. Untrained (small) kids singing “This is who we are, this is what I am. We have nowhere else to go, divided we will stand”. That annoys me some, but I can live with it because the idea is really nice. Two covers are included – “The Sentinel” and “Witch Hunt” by Judas Priest and Rush respectively. Both covers are very good and for the first time ever I can hear the lyrics in “The Sentinel” hahaha (don’t get me wrong, I love Rob Halford’s voice and Priest).

My last thoughts on the album are that it’s NOT better than either “The Blackening” or “Burn My Eyes”, so it lands on a third place in Machine Head’s discography for me. When the album’s over, I just wish there was more (not counting the bonus tracks). This album clocks in at 48 minutes while “The Blackening” does at 61 minutes … I feel like the seven tracks on this album easily could’ve been at least eight or even nine. After all, a CD takes at least 80 minutes of music and most of the bands today have like 12-13 songs on a single CD, although often shorter songs. The most annoying thing about this is that MH takes about four years each time nowadays before a new album comes out … I want more this time!!

Finally, the best songs are: The first four.

Final rating: 82/101 – The album’s a worthy third in MH’s discography, but I take off 19 points because it only has seven originals, and that “Darkness Within” doesn’t flow with the rest of the album … at all.