Article by Machine Head

Machine Head is a heavy metal band, formed in 1992 in Oakland, California.

Band History

It has been said that Machine Head was one of the heaviest metal music bands to rise during the 1990's. Their first album Burn My Eyes (1994), is widely acclaimed to be as pivotal to heavy metal as Slayer's Reign in Blood and Metallica's Master of Puppets. The first song on the album Davidian features the lyric "Let freedom ring with the shotgun blast" subsequently the video was banned from MTV. After Chris Kontos left to work with Testament, the drumming services of Dave McClain were acquired, they then released the followup album, The More Things Change in 1997, after which the guitarist Logan Mader unexpectedly left in the spring of 1998. He was to be replaced by Ahrue Luster (Now of Ill Niño) who worked with the band on the follow up album The Burning Red in 1999 this album was a sign of a change for Machine Head, the band decided to experiment more rather than release another album that would be seen as a just a shadow in the footsteps of Burn My Eyes. Robb uses his rapping techniques in this album rather than the growl he used in the previous album. The song Devil With The Kings Card is based on Logan Mader's leaving of the band. In the end neither of these albums, were as prominent, successful or ground breaking as Burn My Eyes. Machine Head released the album Supercharger in 2001, the album failed to do well, mostly due to it being released shortly after 9/11, as the video for the song Crashing Around You was banned by MTV due to its images of crashing buildings. Once the tour had been completed, Machine Head said their farewells to their record label Roadrunner Records. Ahrue Luster was later kicked out of the band for musical differences and was replaced by Phil Demmel. Since then 2003 and 2004 have been somewhat of a revival for Machine Head, firstly releasing their live album Hellalive in 2003 which was a recording of the Brixton Academy, London set. In fall 2003 Machine Head released their fifth studio album Through the Ashes of Empires in Europe. In early 2004 they re-signed to Roadrunner Records in America and then released Through the Ashes of Empires in the US (featuring an additional song which has not appeared on the european release). Through the Ashes of Empire returned to a style closer to that of Burn My Eyes, and received significant publicity due to the success of the song Imperium from the album and a massive return to lyrical form by Robb Flynn.

Sound Debate

There have been a few debates on Machine Head's overall sound. Some call them a thrash metal or a neo-thrash metal band, due to the fast guitar riffs and angry vocals. Others call them groove metal because of the groove they pit into their rhythms or half groove and half thrash metal for having both fast riffs and lots of grooves. Others have called them nu metal or mallcore, mostly due to The Burning Red and Supercharger albums but say they went back to "true" metal on the Through the Ashes of Empires album. Robb Flynn has stated that Machine Head were never a thrash band in any form and that they are more influenced by hardcore metal than thrash.