UNATØNED REVIEW - DestroyerOfHarmony
By Machine Head
DESTROYEROFHARMONY has written a thoroughly in-depth review or our latest album "UNATØNED"
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Machine Head’s ‘Unatoned’ Is a 41-Minute Punch in the Soul – Brutally Honest Review (Track-by-Track)
Landscape of Thorns
A 31-second instrumental opener that is like walking into a post-apocalyptic cathedral made of rust and bad decisions. No lyrics, just vibe.
The vibe?
You’re screwed.
Atomic Revelations
You know that moment when you realize humanity might’ve peaked with sliced bread and everything since is just radioactive garbage?
Yeah, that’s this song.
“Atomic revelations / These cryptic devastations…”
In other words, the future’s here, and it’s wearing a hazmat suit. Think less “technological utopia” and more “Oops, all fallout.”
It’s a poetic bitch slap to our blind optimism. A warning, framing the future not as a bright evolution but as a terrifying construct built from our short-sighted and immoral decisions.
Unbound
This is the sonic equivalent of breaking out of a mental straitjacket while screaming into a hurricane.
Lead single for a reason, it’s the sound of someone clawing their way to freedom, with bloody nails and existential panic.
It’s not about being free. It’s about realizing you’ve been your own prison warden the whole damn time.
Outsider
A love letter to being done. Betrayal, bitterness, burn-it-to-the-ground energy.
"All the lying, all the cheating
All you left me was defeated
There could never be forgiveness in the end"
No redemption arc. Just someone standing over the wreckage of trust and lighting a cigarette off the flames.
It’s beautiful.
In the way that watching your ex trip over karma is beautiful.
Not Long for This World
Here’s your death anxiety, set to music. Haunting, lyrical, and bleakly gorgeous. The kind of track that makes you text your therapist and also maybe your mom.
"Through the struggles life hurls
Behold the heavens unfurl
Not long for this world"
You’re gonna die. Everyone you love will die. And this track whispers: “Yup. And?” It’s oddly comforting, like being hugged by a ghost.
These Scars Won’t Define Us
A motivational anthem for people who’ve seen some serious crap and didn’t get a cheesy Instagram quote tattoo about it.
"Head to the grindstone, power forward through the endless dark
Focus, determination, on this world I’ll leave a mark
It took so long for any confidence to get in here
And now the question that I need to know, I cannot hear"
It’s not saying “you’re special.” It’s saying “you survived, now do something with it.” Less “self-love,” more “self-discipline.”
Dustmaker
“Dustmaker” is a little musical intermission.
A breather.
Kind of. It’s the metal equivalent of a weird dream sequence in a war movie. You’re not dying yet, but your brain’s doing weird crap.
Sip some water. You’ll need it.
Bonescraper
It’s a head banger with themes of self-destruction and a side of guilt.
"We scrape our bones to numb the pain"
If you’ve ever tried to drink your problems away, punch your trauma into silence, or sleep with someone just to feel something, this one’s your anthem. Congrats, you’re the problem and the solution.
Addicted to Pain
This one goes out to everyone who keeps dancing with the same demons and calling it “growth.” Spoiler: it’s not.
"We’ll never know what could’ve been
Cravings pulled you deep within
Thrown into the hit machine
Feed the beast, start the routine
You gave it all just to chase this flame
The dotted line, a puppet in the game now
Twisted and cheating
The fame we chase is bleating
Turned against brother for acclaim that is fleeting"
The fame-chasing, dopamine-looping, clout-sucking treadmill of modern life, and how it turns people into hollowed-out achievement junkies.
No wonder you’re tired.
Bleeding Me Dry
This one’s a gut-punch, a slow-motion collapse of a relationship that started with dreams and ended with pill bottles and silence.
"There’s no pain without living life
This liquor helps cope with the strife
We talked of you being my wife
Picket fences, some kids, and two bikes
But all that was a fantasy lost in our haze
Through all of the weed smoke and piles of cocaine
A pharmacy of Vicodin, Percs, refillers
You and I were worst friend’s best painkillers"
Jesus.
That line alone deserves a Pulitzer in “Emotional Damage”.
It’s not a love song, it’s a eulogy for what could’ve been. And it hurts because it’s true.
They’re not lovers, not saviors, just each other’s favorite painkillers in a life too painful to face sober.
Shards of Shattered Dreams
More heartbreak. More poetic destruction. Think of it like picking glitter out of a crime scene.
"It’s raining
Shards of shattered dreams
This love divine
Ruins everything
Left to pick up the pieces
Of my dejected heart
I’m breaking and I’m ripping at the seams
These shards of shattered dreams"
When hope becomes a weapon. When dreams cut deeper than knives. This one will haunt you at 3 a.m., probably while scrolling through old texts you should’ve deleted.
Scorn
Dom Lawson, in Metal Hammer, called it “ostensibly a dark, crestfallen ballad” that builds through synth-drenched haze and emotional swells before erupting in a syncopated, spine-tingling finale.
He’s not wrong.
In fact, “Scorn” might be the most hauntingly beautiful track Robb Flynn has ever penned.
Machine Head is no stranger to monumental album closers, think “The Burning Red,” “Descend the Shades of Night,” “A Farewell to Arms,” “Who We Are,” or “Arrows in Words from the Sky.”
Now, add “Scorn” to that list, lifted from their new record “Unatoned” a fitting name for what feels like both an indictment and a lament.
The opening verse says it all:
“I’m putting you under my spell / ‘Cause I’ve got a Bible to sell
Let go your convictions, restrictions will cost you / Your fiction and all that is well
Distrust all the fable they sell…”
This isn’t subtle. It’s manipulation disguised as salvation. The “Bible to sell” is a loaded metaphor, suggesting the commodification of belief, the weaponization of faith. Convictions and moral boundaries are liabilities here, illusions sold to the weak, while the puppeteers profit.
“I look to the sky / As it won’t be the first / And it won’t be the worst
‘Cause there’s still yet to come / With a nation undone by their Scorn”
Hope?
Maybe.
But not without cynicism. The sky becomes a metaphorical void, once a symbol of transcendence, now indifferent or complicit. The “nation undone” is a clear nod to societal collapse, a warning about the corrosion eating away at public trust, autonomy, and truth.
The chorus drives the point home with venom:
“Scorn / Paranoia seeps through every pore
Scorn / Envenomated eyes emit their scorn”
Yes, “envenomated.”
A rare, brutal word choice. It means poisoned. But more than that, it implies a kind of psychological venom, gazes that don’t just judge but infect. Surveillance becomes psychotropic. The “eyes” don’t just watch; they erode.
“The eye in the sky never rests
Watching to form our arrest
They’re chasing us out of our nests
Keeping tabs as they play us like masters of chess…”
There’s Orwell here, but also something more, this is modern paranoia woven through algorithmic control, deep-state tactics, and manufactured chaos. The image of being driven from nests evokes exile from comfort, from truth, from home.
“I look to the sky / As they give us new rifles / To stifle our words
With a Bible and bulletproof vests / As we suffer their Scorn…”
Weaponized religion. Militarized faith. Truth gets smothered in the name of protection. Resistance becomes treason. Free thought becomes a target.
Thematically, “Scorn” stands shoulder-to-shoulder with:
– Rage Against the Machine’s political fire
– Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” and its suffocating institutional critique
– Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited”, where biblical imagery twists through cultural critique
– Metallica’s “…And Justice for All”, where justice is just another rigged game
But “Scorn” isn’t derivative, it’s a culmination. It distills our present-day fears: media manipulation, mass surveillance, the erosion of belief systems, and a creeping spiritual void. It’s a bitter elegy dressed as an anthem.
You don’t just listen to “Scorn”. You endure it, absorb it, and then see the world a little more clearly and perhaps a little more grimly.
The Wrap Up
It’s short, sharp, and swinging a sledgehammer. Less an album, more a therapy session set to blast beats. It’s a bleak, beautiful middle finger to false hope and a mosh pit for your emotional baggage. If you’re looking for easy answers, you’re in the wrong pit, buddy.
Joining Robb Flynn and Jared MacEachern is drummer Matt Alston and guitarist Reece Scruggs, injecting fresh energy into their sound, making “Unatoned” a noteworthy entry in their discography.
Final Score:
5 existential crises out of 5🏅🏅🏅🏅🏅
Now go scream into the void or your pillow, whichever’s closer.
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