Machine Head

Who likes this band? If you do like them, what would you say are their best and worst.

I like The Blackening quite a bit. Burn My Eyes is decent enough.

I've been giving Supercharger a bunch of spins, but I'm having a hard time getting though it in one spin. It's some sort of tangled, confusing, modern metal mess. 'Bulldozer' starts off heavy enough with a crunchy guitar riff then breaks into some weak nu-metal crap. I'd describe it as a mix of Coal Chamber, Sepultura, and Slipknot. The next song is even worse. 'White Knuckle Blackout!' is total nu-metal crap. Even has a rap-inspired breakdown in the middle of the song. Skip button become a necessity at this point. "Crashing Around You" could have been on a Kidd Rock album and no one would have been the wiser. GAK! What happened to these guys between Burn My Eyes and The Blackening?

those two are the best of their discography. The More Things Change & Through the Ashes of Empires aren't bad either. the rest isn't quite as good imho.

I like Burn Your Eyes best, it was fresher then and Davidian is there best song imo. The mix of hardcore and Pantera groove with some thrash seasoning is a far cry from what Robb can do. Machine Head has some good stuff and some stuff that bores me terribly but BYE and The Blackening are better then a lot of modern stuff.

The Blackening is my fave and Supercharger kinda sux IMO.

I like Machine Head's debut album 'Burn My Eyes' but then I feel they lost the plot with their later albums and as of yet have not bothered to pick up any of those albums.

Their first and last albums are their only albums worth having, in my opinion.

Love this band and I like all their releases. My fav in this order..

Burn My Eyes (My first taste of these guys and its one heavy album)
The More Things Change (This one is almost my fav love the songwriting on this album)
Supercharger There are some amazing moments on this album and I dont care if ppl seem to consider this Nu-metal it def isnt)
Through the Ashes of Empire (Some great moments here but it lacks in songwriting sometimes)
The Blackening (Heavy, fast, yet unmemorable IMO)
The Burning Red ( This album has some killer moments and some terrible ones as well )

Burn My Eyes: Excellent
The More Thing Change: Pretty decent
The Burning Red: Pretty Bad
Supercharger: Pile of crap
Through The Ashes Of Empires: Very Good
The Blackening: Very Good

That's just my summary of their albums. The live album "Hellalive" is pretty good too.

ultmetal wrote:

Who likes this band? If you do like them, what would you say are their best and worst.

I like The Blackening quite a bit. Burn My Eyes is decent enough.

I've been giving Supercharger a bunch of spins, but I'm having a hard time getting though it in one spin. It's some sort of tangled, confusing, modern metal mess. 'Bulldozer' starts off heavy enough with a crunchy guitar riff then breaks into some weak nu-metal crap. I'd describe it as a mix of Coal Chamber, Sepultura, and Slipknot. The next song is even worse. 'White Knuckle Blackout!' is total nu-metal crap. Even has a rap-inspired breakdown in the middle of the song. Skip button become a necessity at this point. "Crashing Around You" could have been on a Kidd Rock album and no one would have been the wiser. GAK! What happened to these guys between Burn My Eyes and The Blackening?

Supercharger is their worst. The Burning Red is really good and doesn't get enough praise, but it marks the time the band started doing things based on label pressure to be more modern and radio-friendly. The band admits this and apparently it almost ruined the band. Subsequent result is Supercharger, which has some good songs but is quite a mess at times.

They got back on track with Through the Ashes of Empires, and I think The Blackening is brilliant. As is Burn My Eyes. That one's a classic to me. The More Things Change is also very underrated, even if it's more groovy.

ultmetal wrote:

Who likes this band? If you do like them, what would you say are their best and worst.

I like The Blackening quite a bit. Burn My Eyes is decent enough.

I've been giving Supercharger a bunch of spins, but I'm having a hard time getting though it in one spin. It's some sort of tangled, confusing, modern metal mess. 'Bulldozer' starts off heavy enough with a crunchy guitar riff then breaks into some weak nu-metal crap. I'd describe it as a mix of Coal Chamber, Sepultura, and Slipknot. The next song is even worse. 'White Knuckle Blackout!' is total nu-metal crap. Even has a rap-inspired breakdown in the middle of the song. Skip button become a necessity at this point. "Crashing Around You" could have been on a Kidd Rock album and no one would have been the wiser. GAK! What happened to these guys between Burn My Eyes and The Blackening?

Burn My Eyes is a classic. Used to be nuts about The Blackening but haven't played it for ages so it doesn't really do it for me anymore in case you are wondering ultmetal highlighted my quote on his review. I used to hate Burning Red but I actually really like it even though it would of been way better if it weren't for Rob Flynn's cring making rap and I actually think it's better than Ashes that album sounds too reptitive and borderline metalcore.
Haven't heard the other albums yet

MetalRob331 wrote:

LSupercharger There are some amazing moments on this album and I dont care if ppl seem to consider this Nu-metal it def isnt)

Serious question. What else would you call it? It sounds like nu-metal to me. Even has rapping in it.

ultmetal wrote:

MetalRob331 wrote:

LSupercharger There are some amazing moments on this album and I dont care if ppl seem to consider this Nu-metal it def isnt)

Serious question. What else would you call it? It sounds like nu-metal to me. Even has rapping in it.

I've never liked the term "nu-metal." I mean, Deftones are nu-metal, Cold Chamber is nu-metal, Linkin Park is nu-metal, Korn is nu-metal. None of those bands sound the same. It's a catch-all genre with no real identity.

Supercharger is definitely modern sounding. Modern metal?

"Supercharger" features Robb Flynn rapping in just about every song. When he's not rapping he's either doing the David Draiman (Disturbed) style vocals or some sort of whiny whisper combined with angry shouts that emulate Jonathan Davis of K0rn. Downtuned guitars, breakdowns, hip-hop influences, etc. The whole thing is the very definition of nu-metal to me. I have a hard time even defining it as "metal" since there is very little of what I would describe as heavy metal on this album.

I actually like bands like Disturbed and Sevendust, but to me, this album doesn't even stand up to those bands. At least they have pop hooks and infectious melodies. I guess after being impressed with "Burn My Eyes" and "The Blackening", this CD is just a huge letdown.

I like "The Blackening", which is the only album I have by them. I saw them open for Metallica.

ultmetal wrote:

"Supercharger" features Robb Flynn rapping in just about every song. When he's not rapping he's either doing the David Draiman (Disturbed) style vocals or some sort of whiny whisper combined with angry shouts that emulate Jonathan Davis of K0rn. Downtuned guitars, breakdowns, hip-hop influences, etc. The whole thing is the very definition of nu-metal to me. I have a hard time even defining it as "metal" since there is very little of what I would describe as heavy metal on this album.

I actually like bands like Disturbed and Sevendust, but to me, this album doesn't even stand up to those bands. At least they have pop hooks and infectious melodies. I guess after being impressed with "Burn My Eyes" and "The Blackening", this CD is just a huge letdown.

No doubt. It's not a very good album any way you define it. I'm glad the band realized that not staying true to yourself is destructive.

I'm surprised they were honest about it, actually. Most bands pretend like they were being true, just trying new things. Machine Head said, We f*cked up. We were stupid. We wanted money, fame, and disrespected ourselves and our fans. Guess that's somewhat redeeming.

ultmetal wrote:

I like The Blackening quite a bit.

Has your opinion changed since you last reviewed it? In your review on it you have a few criticisms of the album.

fingers wrote:

ultmetal wrote:

I like The Blackening quite a bit.

Has your opinion changed since you last reviewed it? In your review on it you have a few criticisms of the album.

Nope. I never said I didn't like it. I believe I just had some issues with it not being up to the hype surrounding it and didn't think it was the best album of 2007, like many people were saying at the time.

ultmetal wrote:

MetalRob331 wrote:

LSupercharger There are some amazing moments on this album and I dont care if ppl seem to consider this Nu-metal it def isnt)

Serious question. What else would you call it? It sounds like nu-metal to me. Even has rapping in it.

I think what EYESORE said sums it up best for me. The problem with Machine Head is they always seem to do whats cool at the time IMO. Their albums change too much from one to another.

To me Supercharger is their most underrated album and it has some of the bands catchiest hooks. I can see what you're saying ULT, but having a few similarities with Nu-metal doesnt exactly make it nu-metal. Their are some crushing metal anthems on that album...

Songs like Bulldozer, Kick You When Your Down, White Knuckle Blackout, and the hugely under appreciated American High all pump me up to this day.

I think they should have pulled in another producer other then Johny K. His style of producing is just way too modern and commercial. So to answer your question I would call it Modern Metal along the same lines as Disturbed and Sevendust.

MetalRob331 wrote:

ultmetal wrote:

MetalRob331 wrote:

LSupercharger There are some amazing moments on this album and I dont care if ppl seem to consider this Nu-metal it def isnt)

Serious question. What else would you call it? It sounds like nu-metal to me. Even has rapping in it.

I think what EYESORE said sums it up best for me. The problem with Machine Head is they always seem to do whats cool at the time IMO. Their albums change too much from one to another.

To me Supercharger is their most underrated album and it has some of the bands catchiest hooks. I can see what you're saying ULT, but having a few similarities with Nu-metal doesnt exactly make it nu-metal. Their are some crushing metal anthems on that album...

Songs like Bulldozer, Kick You When Your Down, White Knuckle Blackout, and the hugely under appreciated American High all pump me up to this day.

I think they should have pulled in another producer other then Johny K. His style of producing is just way too modern and commercial. So to answer your question I would call it Modern Metal along the same lines as Disturbed and Sevendust.

Not sure I agree that they always do what's cool at the time. They have four albums that run in much of the same style, and two that don't. The two that don't are the two aimed at mainstream success.

And I don't think a producer could have saved Supercharger. The songs simply aren't that great. The band was falling apart then and it shows.

Yup, "Bulldozer" has the potential to be a crushing song, and is so for the first minute of the song until something goes terribly wrong once the verse and vocals kick in.

Also, there are more than "a few similiarities". Every song has those rap-inspired vocals, downtuned guitars, stop-start riffs, whiny whisper vocals, angry "scream" vocals, etc. It is what it is, an attempt at nu-metal, which was popular at the time. Bride tried the same thing on "Fist Full of Bees". Even the band admit to following the trend at the time in hopes of mainstream success. Nothing wrong with liking it. I like Sevendust and Disturbed, but "Supercharger" doesn't stand up to either of those bands. The whole thing just doesn't feel cohesive.

I've not heard them and based upon what I am reading here, I'm not sure that I want to or need to hear them.

I could never get into them. Too much overrated to tell you the truth.

The silliest thing i read was the blackening being voted album of the deacde by metal hammer's readers.

Burn My Eyes is their best and Supercharger their worst.

I only have Burn My Eyes. I did like the song they did for the Demon Knight soundtrack.

I think they should just reform Vio-Lence and put this band to rest already!

That Album of the Decade in Metal Hammer voted on by the readers is great and all, but, REALLY???? It's not a bad album, but its not great either. I could have picked way better. Just saying.