Song of the Week #4
Its amazing to think now, given how the band has largely become the Rob Flynn show (akin to 2007 Guns N’ Roses, minus the prima donna extremities that came with Axl Rose as the band’s only surviving founding member), that at the turn of the last decade Machine Head once almost stood atop the very pinnacle of the global metal scene. When The Blackening was released in 2007, I can’t imagine that anybody expected it to be quite as good as it was. The entire sound of the album, with intertwining delicate guitar solos, personal and political themes throughout, and a constant barrage of riffs and blasting drum beats from start to finish moved Machine Head even further away from the rawness of 1994’s Burn My Eyes, and created a gulf of class between the band and any of the contenders trying to replicate a like-for-like thrash metal style in the late 2000s.
In my view at the time (and a view that I still hold to this day), Machine Head came so close to being a band that a rock or metal festival could have jumped on as a new generation headliner, save for a few universally known songs in their back catalogue outside of Davidian. The music that followed The Blackening never quite lived up to the inevitable expectations that over 3 years of touring and supporting a major contender for album of the decade would bring (more on that another time). As a consequence, the band lost rather than gained momentum, and personnel changes up to the current day lineup ensured after that the long gruelling 15 year hike up towards the top of rock superstardom, Machine Head would fall back down it even quicker.
The song I’ve linked from The Blackening is Aesthetics of Hate. It isn’t my favourite Machine Head song (for point of reference, my favourite song isn’t even on this album), but in a 6 and a half minute tirade on the senses, it represents everything that this album did absolutely right, and demonstrates just how much of a Magnum Opus this piece of work really is from start to finish - a genuine modern masterpiece from Oakland, CA’s “Machine f*cking Head”.