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Machiavellian: The impossibility of death in the minds of the living

03/02/10 || Altmer

I’m pretty sure labels lie a lot. When I got this here CD in the mail, it advertised the band as being a combination of death, thrash, doom and stoner metal. This is funny because the first thing I thought of when hearing Machiavellian was: “metalcore”. Ok, granted, it doesn’t sound like your average run of the mill metalcore band (these guys aren’t Atreyu), these guys play a bit heavier in general. However, something nags at me here, and it makes me think the label is still a big liar. Because as far as my ears go, “The impossibility of penis in the minds of the virgins” sounds like a huge bunch of bullshit mixed with some decent elements, but in the long run, this EP (because an EP it is, and thankfully only 24 minutes long) fails to make the cut for A-grade. Or B-grade. Or second grade of primary school.

There are a bunch of reasons why these guys fail, even though they try very hard to be all technical, manly and big. The first reason is the vocals. They piss me off immensely. They sound all hardcore and raspy, exactly the way I do not like my growls. Fucken growl, guys, or don’t use vocals at all. I hate half-vocals in any style. You remind me of a bad version of Pantera (except Machiavellian are British; but they sound so American it’s unfunny), or even (and this comparison will show up later), Neurosis. Except Neurosis’ vocals have never been really good. And this is worse. By a mile. A stretched mile. Stretched like a gay ass. To the end of the world. Apart from that, the same vocalist does some high-pitched screams, which don’t piss me off as much, but since I’m not a fan of Dani Filth impersonations and their ilk, they can fuck off too. I am not expecting the next Åkerfeldt or Tägtgren from these guys, but you can do better than this.

The second reason is that their material seems to be blatantly impersonating a bunch of bands. One is Neurosis. They absolutely love breaking up the tempo for slower moments. This is good, because it gives a break from all the technical insanity that forms the other half of the music, but it’s bad because it sounds exactly like Neurosis. At some point I was wondering if I was just listening to a cover of “Through silver in blood”, just with worse vocals. There’s no denying they can play this stuff properly, though – they just sound lost for a personal identity when they do this kind of thing. Come on, new bands, is it so much to ask to do something new here?

The other part is just generic death metal-style riffs with quite a few blast beats, and absolutely hideously-sounding drums. I guess we’re talking stuff like Dying Fetus etc here since that is what the label promo paper said. Well, I never liked Dying Fetus, and I don’t like this. It’s not too chaotic, which is good (and the slower drudging moments help relieve the monotony), but it isn’t particularly interesting. Why do labels advertise this kind of shit improperly anyhow? “One of the most promising UK bands on the scene today?” Fuck you guys. It’s just generic chugga-chugga riffs with layered blast beats, bad vocals, and thankfully, some soft moments to interrupt all the blasting.

You’d be surprised to find anything good here, but oddly enough, there is. You can hear the bass at times. The band members know how to play (but not how to hire a good mixer that makes the drums not sound like utter crap). At least they are not talentless hacks playing this music – Machiavellian do sound like they know their way around guitars and drums and bass. Thank duck. I mean fuck. Fuck a duck.

Production-wise, the guitar tone is mediocre. It sounds raw and dirty, but I don’t like my production muddy – I like it clear and pristine. It does add to the sludgier moments on the CD, though. But if they wanted to do that, why not become a full-fledged Neurosis style band anyway? The “death metal” influences are mediocre to the last degree, the “thrash metal influences” I don’t even hear, and the sludgy moments keep featuring the worst vocals. I don’t get it. Why do new bands always have to use shit productions, anyhow? I thought it was easy to sound good? They even hired an engineer that did Primordial and Napalm Death records, so I don’t even know how they could have managed the guitars to sound so lame. I wonder if these guys are stone deaf because that guitar tone sounds way too weak to give the music the needed vibe.

Also, fact is that a band like this is not allowed to write a song that goes for 8 fucken minutes. 3 is enough. The extra “look, we can groove in half-tempo” sections are unnecessary. Fucken blast or fucken groove, don’t do both at the same time. Thankfully it’s only one song that is that long, but I really don’t want 3 minutes of added boredom to 3 minutes of being irritated by blasts, and most songs feature superfluous parts either way.

These guys have the skills, in other words, but they need the fucken songs. Their label is a liar, and it’s because they aren’t unique in any sense of the word; they’re just playing what everyone else does, what every new metal kid into brutal music likes, and they add some slow moments to make it sound artsy (this makes them look like Opeth, but they’re not). If you wanna be brutal, you need to groove and write songs. If you wanna be raw and dirty, you need to stop killing the atmosphere. This is a clusterfuck of music played by guys who look like they’re the next Job for a Cowboy (apparently they’ve shared the stage with them too). I want this plague of music to end, now, and they’re doing nothing to help. You guys are music virgins, and the impossibility of your penis ever entering a vagina is getting bigger by the day. I hope you guys make up yer mind soon, and play real metal, because otherwise you’re never gonna get the big break you were looking for.

PS: What kind of album title is “The impossibility of death in the minds of the living” anyhow? And also, the cover looks extremely generic. Just like the music.

Information
Released: 2009
Label: Year of the Sun
Website: Machiavellian MySpace
Band
Chris Garman: guitars
Ant Hurlock: bass
Ste Mitchell: guitars
Kris Smith: vocals
Nick Swift: drums

Tracklist
01. Ranger
02. Bone island
03. Marxism
04. Let my home be my gallows

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