Albums Of The Decade: Machine Head – ‘The Blackening’

Machine (fucking) Head come of age and release one of the finest metal records of this decade. Click here to see our other choices for ‘Albums of the Decade’!
In Hammer writer Dom Lawson’s recent Megadeth are better than Metallica blog, he mentioned that when the press heard ‘Death Magnetic’ for the first time, there was a collective sigh of relief from everyone who had feared Metallica had lost it for good. After ‘St. Anger’ and some of the more questionable tracks from ‘Load’ and ‘Reload‘, it was a very fair point indeed.

The same relief echoed around the metal community when Machine Head released ‘Through The Ashes of Empires’ in 2003. Following the unstoppable start to the band’s career on the ground-breaking ‘Burn My Eyes’ and its stellar follow-up ‘The More Things Change’, Machine Head spent a few years losing the plot in spectacular style.

‘Producer de jour’ Ross Robinson was brought in to oversee the nu-metal tinged ‘The Burning Red’ and, while there were still plenty of great moments on the record, it just wasn’t what Machine Head fans had wanted from the band.

Although ‘The Burning Red’ had its merits, it was hard to find any redeeming qualities in MH’s 4th album, ‘Supercharger’. Encouragingly, while many were writing the band off as a creative force, the live shows supporting the album were as ferocious as ever and songs from the record still crush live. Even still, the record had left both fans and critics questioning whether or not Machine Head had lost their mojo and were a spent force. It’s worth pointing out that this was never a view that Metal Hammer shared. Fuck all y’all haters etc.

As such, when Flynn roared “hear me now!!!!!” at the beginning of ‘Imperium’ and a riff kicked in that was heavy enough to make every baby within a ten mile radius wail like you’d just dropped thumbtacks into their cot, relief was used by most while we sat back with a smug ‘told you so’ look on our face.

Reforming a devastating partnership with former Vio-lence colleague Phil Demmel, Flynn lead Machine Head to a glorious comeback on ‘Through The Ashes Of Empires’. Epic in scope, devilishly heavy and with no sign of rapping or dodgy haircuts, the people’s Machine Head had returned to form with devastating effect.

As good as ‘…Ashes…’ was, nothing could prepare us for ‘The Blackening’.

Seeing as the band had taken to writing lengthier tracks on its predecessor, it was always a sure-fire bet that ‘The Blackening’ would continue this trend, but opening with the 10 minutes 37 seconds ‘Clenching the Fists Of Dissent’ was a decision that took balls the size of bulldozers. An all-out assault of stunning riffs, apocalyptic drums, a punishing chant-a-long beatdown and some snarling anti-war lyrics (“there’s something fucking wrong when war takes sons and daughters our lambs mislead to slaughter” being a personal highlight), Machine Head had written an album opener to rival ‘Davidian’ and ‘Imperium’ and one of the finest songs of their career.

The amount of venom flowing from the record was also jaw-dropping. The opening scream of “fuck you all” at the beginning of ‘Beautiful Morning’ is a decent example but for sheer, fist-flying, teeth-clenching rage, nothing gets close ‘Aesthetics Of Hate’.

Written in response to a vomit-inducing, knuckle-headed piece written by the ignorant and idiotic The Iconclast contributor, William Grim, (during which the vacuous asshole described Dimebag Darrell as “contributing to the soul-deadening culture of death, ugliness, depravity and inhumanity that spawned his killer” just days after the legendary guitarist had been shot dead onstage), ‘Aesthetics Of Hate’ was not only a thrash masterpiece, it was a song that united lovers of heavy metal the world over. It also earned the band their very first Grammy nomination for ‘Best Metal Performance’, (the accolade going to Slayer for ‘Final Six’). Hell, Metallica’s James Hetfield liked it so much he joined the band onstage to play the song!

‘The Blackening’ also features some of the finest ‘slower’ songs of Machine Head’s career in ‘Halo’ and ‘A Farewell To Arms’. Both clocking in at over 9 minutes, these represent 2 of the most audacious tracks in Machine Head’s back-catalogue and go to show just how far the band had come in the 13 years since ‘Burn My Eyes’.

This also represents the greatest thing about ‘The Blackening’ – the sheer range of musical landscapes that are visited throught the record. At its heaviest, it’s enough to make you want to open every door in your house via the power of a headbutt, but it’s also stunningly intricate and verging on the faultless in musicianship.

Even tracks that are rarely mentioned, such as ‘Slanderous’ and ‘Wolves’, are faultless exercises in modern metal. Is there a track on this record that’s anything less than incredible? Is there fuck!

‘The Blackening’ is the closest thing that this generation has had to ‘Master Of Puppets’. It’s a showcase for everything that is great about heavy music and if you don’t own this record, there’s a monumental gaping hole in your record collection.

This feature sees us visiting the best albums from the noughties. Of all of the albums that we’ll be covering, this has a serious claim to be the best of the whole bunch.

All hail Machine fucking Head.

Click here to see our other choices for ‘Albums of the Decade’!