As I come to write this review, I get a strange feeling of déjà vu from my last encounter with Arch Enemy. Not that Machine Head sounds anything like Arch Enemy, but the situation is not too far off. Michael Amott prior to releasing Doomsday Machine claimed he was attempting to make the ultimate metal record, and in multiple opportunities Rob Flynn has voiced a similar sentiment. The difference between the two is that Michael Amott was merely misguided whereas Rob Flynn was bloody fucking delusional.

Flynn went on and on claiming about how brutal this record is and how he was aiming to make this record the Master of Puppets of this generation and the "greatest no-bullshit metal album of all time." He considers such greatest no-bullshit metal albums to consist of Vulgar Display of Power, Roots, South of Heaven, and As the Palaces Burn. Now already warning signs should be going off. Vulgar Display of Power was an utterly overrated album that completely inflated Pantera’s reputation. Roots was categorically one of the worst albums in metal and a dark period for Sepultura. As for As the Palaces Burn, I really have to wonder where the fuck Rob Flynn is even pulling this from. (Seriously, he’s throwing a Lamb of God album into that mix? I can ALMOST understand the Roots vote if I was freebasing crack-laced ethanol alcohol in terminal quantities, but this just boggles my mind). Actually, with the exception of Slayer’s South of Heaven, I’m still wrapping my mind around where he thinks any of these belong in here.

Rob Flynn also promises there will be no gay singing, no ripped off Iron Maiden riffs, and no technical guitar wankery. Because apparently those are all the signs of what’s "in" for the scenester crowd. Never mind that ripping off Iron Maiden riffs and enhancing one’s technical prowess are two of metal’s longest running practices, Rob Flynn can’t have any of that! In order for this to be the greatest no-bullshit metal album, it can’t appeal to scenesters and can’t be playable over mainstream airwaves! Surely, this logic is flawless.

Then again, this is Machine Head we’re talking about. A major portion of its discography consists of the worst nu metal this side of Slipknot. The Burning Red and Supercharger are quite possibly the worst things I’ve ever heard, and an hour ago I was just listening to a tribute record to Mortician for fuck’s sake. Something has to be pretty damn bad to compete with a Mortician tribute. Going into The Blackening, I’m scared shitless of just what to expect.

The good news: The Blackening most definitely is not the Machine Head of the past. The bad news: Machine Head managed to find out how to suck just as much, only in different ways.

The Blackening opens up the album with a ten minute opus called "Clenching the Fists of Dissent". It starts off with a nice little acoustic bit, obviously shooting for that Master of Puppets vibe Flynn craves so much, but then barrels head long into the heavy riffage. And by "barrel" I’m mean half-heartedly wobble like a drunk man pretending to be sober so he can get past the nearby police officer as he attempts to reach his car to drive home drunk. The song-writing here is completely phoned in and about as heavy as a constipated shit. It wants to come out, but the best you can do is let out gas. And it’s odor-less gas at that, making the entire effort worthless. It’s obvious that Rob Flynn and Co. want to thrash their way to oblivion, but it’s so fucking boring. The ten minute song length only compiles the problem. You’ll be banging your head against a hot frying pan hoping to god they hit a set of riffs that catches your interest. When Machine Head does break up the song to give it variety and life (which is actually pretty often, despite how boring it is), they drop the ball completely, somehow continuing with a segment of riffs even more boring. What’s worse is they unveil a slower emotive part towards the end that has more place on metalcore record than it does on your average shred-fest. This emotive part is structured eerily like the melodic clean vocal choruses of a Trivium or Killswitch Engage record, and my God it bores me senseless. Machine Head is using boring riffs in a fashion not unlike metalcore acts.

And these problems you hear at that opener just plague the record for the next hour of music. You got by the by-the-book mediocre riffs that will enthrall you less than watching a blind nun read The Great Gatsby. You have the metalcore-like emotional choruses that will make you cringe, and- fuck- sometimes they simply ARE metalcore choruses (See "Beautiful Morning"). To compound the problem you got Rob Flynn’s vocal approach: Rob just services that metalcore feeling on his vocal approach more and more. Actually, now that I think about it, the aesthetic sound of his voice may have served as the template for those metalcore bands when forming! Well fuck me in the ass and call me Sally, this sucks. And to again make note of his desire to make the next Master of Puppets, he writes songs like "Now I Lay Thee Down" which at the 3:54 mark throws a familiar nod to "Orion". The technique is completely out of place in the song, and doesn’t really add or improve its boring metalcore feel.

There is some good here. The solo work on The Blackening is actually pretty damn good at certain instances. But it’s case of too little, too late. It becomes painfully apparent by the time you hit The Blackening’s 10-minute closer "A Farewell to Arms" that Machine Head has left the realms of nu metal for the equally disdainful realms of clichéd, boring metalcore. Any worth the solos had is shot to hell. It’s like taking a defibrillator and attempting to revive a body weeks after it expired and the process of rot and escaping gases have already ruptured its anus, allowing the horrid stench and purulent shit to seep out. At best you might receive a post-mortem motor reaction, but that’s it. The corpse is more than ready to be interred into the earth.

Wait a second, let’s go back. What was Rob Flynn going on about? No gay singing? Well, Rob delivered gay singing in spades. What’s this about not being viable to the mainstream? There’s nothing on here keeping The Blackening out of Hot Topic or the occasional radio rock station that will play Roadrunner acts other than Nickelback, so The Blackening is perfectly open to the mainstream if they felt like picking it up. Hell, the two albums Rob runs on and on about as the influences for this (i.e. Master of Puppets and Vulgar Display of Power) are the epitome of mainstream accessibility, despite their heavy qualities. From the announcement where I got the above comments of Rob’s, Rob stated he wasn’t trying to fish in the same pond as the scenesters. What genre of metal do most scenesters still associate themselves with? Metalcore. What kind of album did Machine Head more or less just put out? A metalcore-esque album. Rob is fishing in the scenester pond, just like he always has! The Blackening isn’t Machine Head’s nu metal, but it’s the same quality of shit, just in a different way.

This sums up The Blackening as accurately as I can put it: the album is a flaccid penis. It’s a flaccid penis that has started to wither and shrivel up from complete atrophy. There’s a very good chance that some sexual deviant slave master is looking at partially castrating the withered cock for his own gratification. Or worse: straight-on emasculation. But there’s no doubt about it. This cock has seen its last jizz, and it’s going to get castrated, one way or another. Just like Machine Head.

Written By: Necro-tron