Tracks
1. I Am Hell (Sonata in C#)
2. Be Still and Know
3. Locust
4. This Is the End
5. Darkness Within
6. Pearls Before the Swine
7. Who We Are

Band:
Robb Flynn – lead vocals, guitar
Dave McClain – drums
Adam Duce – bass, backing vocals
Phil Demmel – guitar

Discography:
Burn My Eyes (1994)
The More Things Change... (1997)
The Burning Red (1999)
Supercharger (2001)
Through the Ashes of Empires (2003)
The Blackening (2007)

Guests:

Info
Robb Flynn – production
Juan Urteaga – mixing

Released 26/9-2011
Reviewed 25/9-2011

Links:
machinehead1.com
myspace
youtube
roadrunner

Four guys who like Deep Purple have assembled an album made entirely out of locusts ready to swarm all world selling billions of albums, at least it could have been. The band called Machine Head was formed in 1992 and they are considered to be one of the bands that pioneered the very well known, and classical NWOAHM. They are also a fairly successful band who were Grammy nominated for their latest album called The Blackening. Their new album is called Unto the Locust and it is the seventh album in the career of Machine Head and has been named to belong amongst the absolute best albums of the year by some reviewers. It has received full marks in some reviews, even in respected magazines and not only small blogs. The covers is greenish and absolutely not very interesting and for you who still do not know anything about this band, they are from California in the United States of America.

They belong to the NWOAHM which of course is a very expression as you know but Machine Head are said to be groove metal, which of course means thrash metal with a groove. They are very heavy with lots of energy but at the same time they are quite melodic, they have some symphonic elements as well. The album are also showing quite some variation over the seven tracks on the album, they are still within the same style they have established in the first track which makes it varied but not incoherent. The production on this album is quite brilliant with a sound that suits this album and tracks like a hand in a glove, the hands in a glove is nothing the guitarist has though in case you listen to the guitar playing on this album you can clearly hear that. The album has as I stated before, seven tracks and it will take about 48 minutes to play all of them. This makes the tracks have an average playing time of almost seven minutes, one of the tracks is shorter than five minutes and only one is longer than eight minutes.

This album starts with a eight minute epic in three parts, a track that show what the album is all about. All the elements of the album are represented in this opening tracks, it is a great opening track and a really good presentation of this album. Still it is the second track called Be Still And Know that is the best one on the album with its great melodic heaviness it is just brilliant. The track called Locust which can be said to be the title track and is referring to swarms of locusts is a very good track as well as the other tracks on the album, still they are not as good as Be Still And Know. Still, we have one more brilliant track to end it all in the best possible way in Who We Are which can best be described as a track that sounds like Pink Floyd meets a volcanic eruption. I would say that the overall impression towards this album is a very positive one.

I would however state that I do not rate this album as a candidate to the album of the year, but just maybe as it stands today as a candidate to the top ten list of albums of the year but there is still some time left in the year so we’ll see. In its best moments Unto the Locust is an amazing album and the overall feel is that it is a really good album so would say that it is a really good album that I think will fit most people regardless of musical preference.

A good description of Unto the Locust would be to say that it sounds like Pink Floyd standing inside an exploding volcano playing their Wish You Were Here album, that equates to it being a very good album.

HHHHHHH

 

Label: Roadrunner Records International/Warner
Three similar bands: Chimaira/Criminal/The Dying
Rating: HHHHHHH (5/7)
Reviewer: Daniel Källmalm