It’s the new Machine Head album “Catharsis” and boy has it caused quite a stir in the metal community worldwide. Reviews and fan feedback coming through were bitingly harsh and negative with only a few positive notes coming through so we thought, let’s see what all the fuss is about and dig into it ourselves and see if the response was warranted. What we came across was maybe indifferent to the popular opinion.
Machine Head are one of those bands that have been a pretty big part of my life ever since the heavier style of music came into my radar all those years ago. In fact Machine Head were one of the very first metal bands I came across, before they had even released their iconic debut album “Burn My Eyes” back in 1994. It was around 1993 when I got turned onto them alongside a lot of what was then known as the new metal movement which sadly ended up becoming the nu-metal genre, but back then bands like Machine Head, Fear Factory, Biohazard and a lot of the hardcore meets modern metal were ripping it up in the underground before exploding onto the Roadrunner years and the Nu-metal phase. Keep in mind this was before the internet really took off and filesharing was unheard of but somehow I had heard early Machine Head tracks before they were released on what’s considered by many to be their greatest album to date. And so we fast forward 24 years later (that doesn’t make me old now does it!) and we have years of evolution bottled up on their 9th studio album, “Catharsis“.
I purposefully held off on this review to not only give this album a fair chance by really digging deep into each of the tracks but to not get caught up in all the hoopla that surrounded it’s release. Machine Head to me in the years since “Burn My Eyes” have been largely a hit and miss affair, their sophomore effort “The More Things Change” was a tasty follow up but then things took a turn for the worse with a couple of weaker albums and for a while I lost interest in the band, probably more so to do with my taste in music than anything that Machine Head were actually doing. As disinterested as I was for the most part in those late 90’s/early 2000’s albums, my musical tastes were diversifying in much the same way the band was in their own way so that I cannot hold against them as I have the utmost respect for artists who experiment and try different things even if they don’t work. That mantra of you don’t know until you try couldn’t be more truer for artists and I think it’s a point many fans and casual music listeners fail to realize. With the band’s later work they slowly got things back on track which ultumately resulted in the epic “The Blackening” album which dragged me back into their world again, and probably to many others too. It’s widely considered on par with their first 2 albums and I concur, it’s a brilliant piece of work.
Getting back to what Machine Head are doing now though, “Catharsis” is not what I would consider the best Machine Head album so far so let’s get that out there right away. But I will say that it’s by far not their worst either and I’m sure many will disagree, but I’m not here to pander to the majority. This album really is middle of the road, signature Machine Head stuff. Signature you say? Sure why not? When you get down to the bare bones of what this album sounds like, it has all the classic elements of what Machine Head are known for. Those squeally guitar notes that trail the ends of each riff line, those huge pounding grooves, the hard hitting drum beats, Rob Flynn’s scorching vocals – it’s all there. So what was the fuss about this album? My guess is the occasional weird moments that are found sporadically through most of the songs on the album. Sure they were a bit left turn type stuff, bizarre at times and possibly even cringeworthy if you really wanted to hammer the point across but is it really the main focus points of the songs? I don’t think they were and after an entire month of listening to this album from top to bottom, I realized this was just the usual Machine Head stuff, albeit with a few quirky moments.
The title track has all the right ingredients for the most part but does lose you a bit with the soft chorus lines and that Burning Red vibe, the synth like elements probably don’t help but overall this thing still grooves like hell. Admittedly “Beyond The Pale” has some pop like qualities to it but they are completely superceded by the more heavier aspects, the bouncy feel as the main riff hypnotically drags you in. Again this is typical Machine Head stuff albeit with a slight twist. Where it does get a bit more challenging is on tracks like “Triple Beam” and “Kaleidoscope“, Rob’s spoken word stuff is a little hard to swallow at times and it’s made worse by some of the lyrical lines especially on “Kaleidoscope” where it seems as if it was intentionally written for the live show which is all well and good at the show but it doesn’t translate that well when your sitting at home by yourself and hearing someone trying to get you pumped. “Bastards” is the same as well but in a more pop punk kind of way, I’m sure they will do well live but not on record.
But on a more positive note, the opener “Volatile“, is without a doubt signature Machine Head, all familiar grooves and guitar sounds with a huge breakdown and the drums circling around monster riffs. This was a pretty damn good start to the album and further down the tracklist “Screaming At The Sun” just clicks nicely together with a mean sounding riff driving this beast of a song. It doesn’t come across as pretentious or anything more than it should, it’s straight up Machine Head on this one. Sure it has some big melodic moments as it does on many of the tracks through out the album but that’s always been part of Machine Heads DNA anyway and maybe people have missed that crucial aspect that seems almost dominant on “Catharsis” in much the same way as it was on later albums like “Unto The Locust” and “Bloodstone & Diamonds”. And that’s part of the point that I’m trying to make here I suppose, is that “Catharsis” isn’t really that much different than the stock standard Machine Head albums that are already out there. That’s not to say that this album doesn’t have the flaws that are so stringently pointed out but they certainly aren’t the focus points or the main elements of this album.
“Catharsis” is also an album, as pointed out earlier on, that does take a bit of time to get into. Like with anything new and certainly in my experience, anything that has remained consistently in my playlist or has kept getting better and better over the years, some albums grow on you and while I honestly don’t think “Catharsis” will grow on me as much as some of my most favorite albums will (Through the Ashes of Empires being one example of that), I don’t consider it to be as bad as people have made it out to be. Or maybe it will grow on me and things will eventually click but for now, “Catharsis” remains as one of the more average Machine Head albums in the catalogue so far but certainly not the worst either.
TRACKLIST
Volatile
Catharsis
Beyond the Pale
California Bleeding
Triple Beam
Kaleidoscope
Bastards
Hope Begets Hope
Screaming at the Sun
Behind a Mask
Heavy Lies the Crown
Psychotic
Grind You Down
Razorblade Smile
Eulogy
