MACHINE HEAD — Of Kingdom and Crown (review)

MACHINE HEAD — Of Kingdom and Crown album cover

Album · 2022 · Groove Metal

4/5 · 2022-08-26
Kingcrimsonprog

For me, Machine Head are one of the most important and definitive bands in Metal as a whole, and while their popularity and respect have waxed and waned over the years, and while band members have come and gone, they always release top quality live material, and have at least some utterly killer songs on even the most critically and fan lambasted studio records.

The last few years have been another dip for the band, who were beloved in the early-mid nineties, gained some more recognition but lost a lot of respect in the late nineties, had an almost-breakup-causing critical and commercial flop at the start of the noughties, later to rise phoenix-like to become many people’s favourite band for over half a decade, around the time guitarist Phil Demmel (Vio-Lence) started working with the band. Eventually iconic bassist Adam Deuce exited the band. Then they released the critically and comments-section savaged Catharsis album from 2018 and their popularity took an absolutely massive hito the point where the band became a joke in the eyes of many, and unique drummer Dave McClain (Sacred Reich) who’d been on every single Machine Head release except for the debut sadly left the band, with Phil Demmel who’d become one of the most fan-beloved members also exiting in tow... leaving the band seemingly a smoking ruin.

The intervening years have seen sporadic one-off singles, short EPs and pre-pandemic a reunion of the line-up of their debut album playing that classic record live in full, (plus a new drummer and guitarist playing the other songs for the rest of the concerts... two different band line ups at the same show... all very...untidy), and session players on some of the recordings, making them lose that unified band unit feel. In short, its been a mixed bag.

Now the thing is, realistically, Catharsis is nowhere near as bad as people made it out to be, sure it’s a bit overlong, sure there are some questionable stylistic shifts for a few songs (and a few parts of other songs). Agreed; the lyrical direction was ill-advised and turned a lot of people off… but for the most part, the main basis of the album at the end of the day was exactly the same stuff that people loved about albums like ‘Ashes and The Blackening, it wasn't that big a deal frankly. People were also complaining about the use of slur in a song (but this was a song actively decrying prejudice and preaching unity, and making a deliberate point against the use of slurs by the way) yet seemed happy to ignore the fact that “Slanderous” on everyone’s-favourite (or at least second-favourite if you prefer the debut) album The Blackening did the exact same thing and no one ever talks about it.

There were also a load of negative Americans with different political views than lyricist Robb Flynn getting upset about Robb writing about politics, despite the band making their name on the album Burn My Eyes which is absolutely dripping with politics and current events... and no one gave them grief about that album's political lyrics.

In short, everyone took leave of their senses, blew everything completely out of proportion, and the band took a devastating hit that would have killed most bands, over some absolute mountains-out-of-molehills nonsense that in a sane and rationale world would just be seen as just a minor blip in an otherwise superb run of albums.

The internet trolls, the clickbait writing websites and the crowd-following print journalists who seemed afraid to defy the mob and stick to rational and measured criticism (eg. “It’s a bit flabby, and there are some problems, I dislike the lyrics, but mostly, its pretty much the same as the last four albums really,” rather than “OMG this is the worst crime against my ears since nails met chalkboards y’allz. Stop talking about politics and literally commit suicide, Robb Flynn!”) had spoken. I even saw hatchet job negative reviews of the live shows, even though I know from personal experience they were brilliant live on that tour.

So, here we are four long and gruelling years later, and Machine Head have released their next full-length studio album, and have a chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of the public, right the ship, and navigate themselves back into their position of one of the most beloved bands in the genre (well, in the UK and Europe at least, I know the US has always been a bit less doe-eyed about them than us Brits have been).

Of Kingdom And Crown (I’m not typing out all the caps or “Ø”s) is the band’s tenth proper album, first concept album, and first with Wacław "Vogg" Kiełtyka (Decapitated) on guitar.

Lyrically, it is a large course-correct for the band, who got savaged for talking about politics and using hip hop style delivery last time, instead now focusing on a Red Sky nightmare world and the intertwining story of two tragic characters Ares and Eros with a much more Locust/Blackening vocal delivery on most of the songs.

Musically, its also a course-correct, in so much as all the bits from the last album that people criticised are gone, (which as I keep saying, was only a small part of the album anyway, blown way, way out of proportion), which leaves it pretty much sounding exactly what you would expect from any Machine Head album released after The Blackening.

There are big crunchy grooves, fun pinch harmonics, intermittent speedy Thrash sections, furious guitar solos, a mix of growls, screams and shouts in the vocal department, some ballady parts but in songs that transform later into either groovers or thrashers later on.

There is a fair bit of clean singing, but nothing more than was on 'Ashes or Locust anyway, not excessively so. Even the cleanest, most commercial song “My Hands Are Empty” which came out near the start of the pandemic as a standalone single, does have some big dirty stinkface riffs in it to balance out that “woah-oh-wah-oh-a-oh-a-oh-oh” chant (which as a random side note, Five Finger Death Punch have totally stolen on their new album - listen to their song "Judgement Day" - pretty suspiciously close vocal melody, right?).

Some of the standalone singles released prior to this record but after the band imploded were good ("Do Or Die"), but some of them were weak, (Circle The Drain") and lacked a certain magic. I was worried that without Phil and Dave, that maybe Machine Head would be forever lessened and wouldn’t ever fully recover, even if they got close.

Some of the tracks from this album (actually, about six) were released in advance, which reassured me somewhat, as tracks like “Rotten” appeared to be mixing the best parts of Catharsis, (deleting the controversial parts) with a kind of Burn Me Eyes / The More Things Change vibe, and tracks like “Choke On The Ashes Of Your Hate” seemed to be going for that pedal to the metal speed and aggression that made The Blackening so enjoyable.

Sometimes hearing too many songs in advance can harm an album (I still don’t like Megadeth’s Thirteen as much as I should for this reason, it only feels like a half a new album to me) but in the case of this album, I think it was nice to get used to parts of the album in advance to cleanse the palate and clear the air. When hearing the record as a whole, with each song in context and in the correct order… it takes shape as a proper full album.

Without hearing those tracks repeatedly and letting them sink in over weeks (or in some cases months, or in one case years) I would have just been sat here nervously wondering: Will it end up as a soulless carbon copy of old glories to please an ungrateful fanbase? Will it end up a misjudged technical death metal album due to Vogg’s inclusion? Will it be a repeat of all the mistakes of the over-discussed Catharsis now that Rob lacks Dave and Phil to talk him out of bad decisions?

In reality, none of those things were true. Its just a good Machine Head album. Its not just better than Catharsis, its upper half of their whole discography. It would be unrealistic to expect it to be the best album of their whole career or anything… but its not going to be one of those forgotten pity-comeback albums either, thr ones that people say they like for a year or two, then talk trash about once the next album is better.

There are some intro/interlude tracks to help with the story, that I have seen some people criticise, but you can just skip them, like we all do on River Runs Red or World Coming Down, without it ruining the whole record.

If you are an unpleasable internet troll who only likes Burn My Eyes or The Blackening and nothing else, then this album won’t win you back into the fold. If however, you are the sort of person who finds Through The Ashes Of Empires or The Locust among their favourite albums, then this record should be very satisfying for you. The album is consistent, flows well, has some diversity so it doesn’t get boring but sticks to what the band are good at, it gives the fans what they want without being pandering about it. It is in short, an exercise in Robb Flynn doing what he is good at, with a capable backing band that stop it feeling too differently than the glory years. The concept, while not all that inspired, very handily keeps Rob away from his worst lyrical tendencies too. Always a bonus.

I really do hope as a community, we can now just sweep all the negativity of the past four years under the carpet as the minor blip it should have always been, and get back to loving Machine Head unashamedly without having to listen to a load of negativity about it. I look forward to reviewing their next album, when hopefully the review can just start with what the album sounds like and how good it is or not again. I've already got tickets to see the band live and I really hope they play a lot of material off this record live, it will fit in really well with the 2003-2014 material.