5^thMachine
Back in Time

5th Machine is a steam locomotive that takes you on an unforgettable journey through sound, time and thought, at least according to the label. Memorable hooks and stuff are also written in the text about the Brazilian band’s debut album Back in Time. That is actually a pretty good thing to write in the marketing about the journey as music should be a journey, a journey in the mind to exciting places, times, events, and what have you? And this album certainly portrays some means for that journey on a pretty decent artwork – so let us look at how much of a journey this really is.

Heavy rock or heavy metal in the eighties style, so a journey back in time in the stylistic sense. The songs are relatively catchy, and the production is finer than that of the bands we heard when this music first arrived. I think that the songs that comes are much of what we can expect, and I would say that it is a pretty predictable album, and it is quite generic in terms of style as well – no surprises. I wouldn’t exactly claim that they take us on a journey through sound and thought, neither do they bring out too many of the memorable hooks I read about in the press sheet.

Back in time feels like a time machine to the eighties and to a generic attempt at capitalising on the popularity of this kind of music back then. The album is very predictable, it is déjà vu, and it is lacking personality. The kind of album there is really no point in releasing as it offers nothing fresh, nothing new, nothing interesting, and it isn’t filled with perfect songs – if it at least was a perfect craftsmanship there would have been some point but this is average in terms of quality and generic in terms of style. It is really hard to muster up the energy and enthusiasm required to put down the words about it as there is nothing to grab hold of, nothing to raise the pulse and nothing that engages me as a listener.

5th Machine comes up with a debut album that doesn’t do anything at all for me, and to be honest it doesn’t really show any exciting elements either. When the best thing of an album is that it doesn’t make you want to vomit and turn off immediately you kind of know that it isn’t an album that will make much of a mark. Some fans of nostalgic hard rock will probably like it, but there are better retro rockers out there. It isn’t a journey that I want to take, there are more than enough journeys back in time already.

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