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Machinae Supremacy: A view from the end of the world
21/10/10 || Altmer
Nintendo metal deluxe! You know what this is? It’s like Super Mario Bros. Metal! It even features those typical SID noises made by the SNES in the early ages of video gaming (and metal). What else is this? Radio metal pretty much. It’s catchy electronic half-metal that everyone can like, but can also get bored of after a few spins, pretty much. My first impression is, however, that this one, unlike the last album or two that I skipped, is pretty good and ranks with their earlier material.
Back when I was in high school, I had a fetish for catchy power metal. I still like some of that to an extent, and one of the songs I stumbled upon was “Through the Looking Glass” (this band’s best song). I must have listened to that song about a hundred times, so if you’re close to that it means you are doing something right on the Catchy-Scale. In fact, this is one of the better “catchy metal” bands out there, that are at least doing something original and have a bit of novelty to their music. In this case that is the weird SNES noises.
Downsides to the album include the fact that all the songs sound very alike. Once you get over the novelty of the fact that the keys sound like Mario, you realize that there ain’t really that much going on. The album isn’t layered to shit. It pretty much relies only on its catchy melodies and luckily those are plenty, but it makes the album extremely one-dimensional. This means that its lasting value isn’t very long, but it’s enjoyable while it does last. At least that is a good thing. It’s got the songs to last me a few months or so. Probably one or two songs that end up being hits deluxe in my book. Never a bad thing.
The vocals are pretty drawly too, and that’s a bit annoying as well. He doesn’t get to be super irritating with the best of them, but he isn’t the world’s best singer and it sounds a bit whiny. Nerdy even. Then again if you’re using an SID chip in metal you have to be nerdy as it is.
This album isn’t half bad and most of you will probably hate it for its very commercial and catchy population-pandering tendencies, but it does that properly. I like it very much. It’ll get a few more spins from me at some point, that’s for sure. Except that one song (the seventh one) that really does sound like DragonForce a bit too much, haha…
Recommendation: Mix it up a bit, kids.
- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Spinefarm Records
- Website: www.machinaesupremacy.com
- Band
- Robert Stjarnström: vocals
- Jonas Rörling: guitars
- Andreas Gerdin: guitars, keyboards
- Jonas Hedlund: bass
- Niklas Karvonen: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. A View From The End of The World
- 02. Force Feedback
- 03. Rocket Dragon
- 04. Persona
- 05. Nova Prospect
- 06. World of Light
- 07. Shinigami
- 08. Cybergenesis
- 09. Action Girl
- 10. Crouching Camper Hidden Sniper
- 11. Indiscriminate Murder is Counter Productive
- 12. One Day in The Universe
- 13. The Greatest Show on Earth
- 14. Remnant (March of the undead IV)
