Here is the monster 2nd album from Oakland California's metal legends Machine Head!
"The More Things Change…" delivered on every conceivable level and further strengthened the common perception that this compelling, mutant subgenre known as ‘groove metal’ was the only legitimate way forward for mainstream heaviness.
Setting out their stall with the crushing braggadocio of Ten Ton Hammer (“…like broken glass you’ll shatter/with bloody fists I’ll batter…”), Machine Head had plainly lost none of that all-important rage to overcome and nor had they allowed a desire to progress to dilute the purity and focus of their music and message. If anything, "The More Things Change…" is even more incensed and inflammable than "Burn My Eyes", with just a touch of the mesmerising lyrical vulnerability that Robb Flynn would embrace with alacrity on later albums to momentarily distract from an otherwise relentless deluge of disdain. Just listen to the empowerment-through-contempt onslaught of "Take My Scars", a song so heavy that Slayer seemingly borrowed its opening riff a few years later (check out "Bitter Peace" from "Diabolus In Musica"), and its anguished coda of “Why can’t you fuckin’ open up your eyes?” sung by an audibly livid Robb.
Similarly, the sheer intensity of anger evident in album highlight "The Frontlines", wherein images of burning effigies, clenched teeth and “puke sold as salvation” mingled with some of the most strident and pulverising riffs ever committed to tape, made it abundantly clear that Machine Head’s vision of the world was gleefully horrifying and yet utterly sincere.
Once again, the chief musical weapons at the band’s command were those exhilarating, precise grooves, driven forward by perfectly entwined guitars and drums, Robb’s excoriating roar and a less easily defined but still unmistakable sense of urgency that stood in stark contrast to the more louche and lurching approach favoured by the burgeoning nu metal scene." - Metal Hammer
Jewel Case CD Pressing
Tracklisting:
1. Ten Ton Hammer
2. Take My Scars
3. Struck A Nerve
4. Down To None
5. The Frontlines
6. Spine
7. Bay Of Pigs
8. Violate
9. Blistering
10. Blood Of The Zodiac
