LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

Zach Bryan - “American Heartbreak” and “Zach Bryan”.  
Fave songs: “Hey Driver”, Whiskey River” “Jake’s Piano”, "East Side Of Sorrow, “Something In The Orange”, “Happy Instead”, “Mine Again”, “Cold Damn Vampires”, “’68 Fastback”

Indisputably, my 2 most listened to albums of 2025.  These became my go-to “heavy in the soul, not the guitars” records. Zach Bryan blindsided me. Mostly acoustic, almost no distortion, certainly no thrash beats — just raw emotion. Zach Bryan writes like he’s emptying out his soul one line at a time, and it caught me in a way I didn’t expect. 

“Hey driver, pull over, I’m in a fight with God”… man… I’ve been there too many times…it’s heavy in a human way, the kind of heavy that shows up at 2 a.m. when you’re laying on the floor drunk and high, staring at the ceiling, going over all the mistakes you've made in life, but don’t want to talk about. 

Sometimes the best music doesn’t need to be loud — it just needs to be honest in a way that feels almost uncomfortable at times — and that’s exactly why I kept coming back to it.



Sleep Token - Take Me Back To Eden & Even In Arcadia
Fave Songs: “Emergence", "Chokehold”, “Look To Winword”, “Dangerous”, “Caramel”
Sleep Token’s album absolutely swallowed me whole this year. I know some metalheads love to hate on them, and not every song was for me, but there’s something about the mix of crushing down-tuned riffs, haunting melodies, lyrical sadness, sex, and naked emotion that hits a part of my brain nothing else touches. “Go ahead and wrap you’re arms around me”… “Will you halt this eclipse in me”… lyrics and melodies that ping-pong around my brain for weeks...It’s dramatic, it’s weird, it’s glossy, and it’s heavy in a completely different way — the whole thing feels like a confession whispered over a thunderstorm. 

Kudos to my old “Through The Ashes Of Empires” producer Carl Bown for the incredible layers on sonic beauty he helped craft. I don’t care how many “true” metalheads roll their eyes — the songs that grabbed me, grabbed me and didn’t let go.




Kublai Khan - Top 10 Spotify tracks
Fave tracks: “The Hammer”, “Theory Of Mind"
Kublai Khan has this way of making every song feel like I'm getting dragged against my will into the circle pit in the best possible way.  But “The Hammer”… man, that one hits different. The second it drops, it’s like the temperature in the room changes — that opening riff, that stomp, that dual vocal delivery that sounds like pure fury boiled down to its essence “You will never know, you will never ever know”. 

It’s so simple, it’s so direct, and it hits with the force of a punch to the face. And the crazy part? The rest of their top tracks carry that same pulse — tight, punishing, no-bullshit hardcore that never overstays its welcome. A masterclass in simplicity.  

And having seen these guys live three times in the last year I can tell you... I pity the band that has to follow them on a festival slot. A band firing on all cylinders at the literal peak of their powers

Well done boys



The Jompson Brothers - 2014 self titled:
Fave songs: “Ride My Rocket”, "Hey Girl”, “Inside Your Head”, “Blood In The Water”

My friend Shelli turned me onto this record at the beginning of the new year, and I haven’t stopped listening.  Chris Stapleton’s 2014 rock band is like a late-night bar fight between Southern rock swagger and bluesy grit.  Chris’s voice is un-fucking-real here, all whiskey, sex, sadness, and wildfire, and those riffs… big, fat, juicy Zepplin/AC/DC riffs that just strut with attitude. 

Love gone bad “I should hate you, but I don’t"... one night stands “Hey girl, what’s your name" ... raisin’ hell… fuckin’ hell… I’ve lived this record.  The type of album to get the party started, or drink yourself to sleep.  Rough edges, big hooks, pure vibe.  





Turnstile - "Glow On" and "Never Enough”
I still haven’t stopped listening to “Glow On” (an absolute timeless classic)… but I had to pause to give this a listen, and the boys delivered.  Turnstile dropped an album I kept reaching for whenever I needed something that just felt good without losing that hardcore punch. It’s bright, bouncy, and weirdly uplifting, but still hits with enough energy to scratch the heavy itch. It’s one of those records that reminds me that being a metal guy doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a little sunshine with your riffs — sometimes a blast of pure positivity is exactly what the year needs.




Paleface Swiss - Cursed
Fave songs: “Enough?”, ”…and with hope you’ll be damned"
This album is just pure sonic bloodbath, that voice… WOW… this young man has a very bright future, as he has delivered one of the most truly cathartic performances of this decade. Every song feels like a breakdown waiting to collapse the floor, and sometimes that’s exactly the vibe I’m after. It’s raw, ugly, and gloriously over-the-top, and yet lyrically quite the contrary to the current overly-masculine-posturing of todays metal climate - all delivered with death-metal-rap-flows that makes you want to fight your own steering wheel while driving.



Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out
Fave Songs: “Chains & Whips (feat: Kendrick Lamar)”, P.O.V. (feat Tyler The Creator)”, “Ace Trumpets”, Let God Sort Em Out/ Chandeliers”

This is the HARD shit, the hard shit I’ve been missing in hip hop. Pusha T and Malice have always had an effortless cool about them, and I’ve followed there Clipse career and solo careers for coming up on decades because they ALWAYS deliver. Cocaine flows, guns and murder...It grabbed me by the throat the second I hit play, but those tracks with Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, The Creator? Fuckin’ hell… those are on a whole different level. 

After this many times, a Clipse / Pusha / Kendrick feature feels like a pressure drop in the room - (peep 2013’s “Nostalgia” for pure hip hop god-level shit) it’s gonna happen, it’ gonna be sick, and this one is no different   He comes in sharp, surgical, almost unsettling in how locked-in he sounds. And then you’ve got Tyler showing up like a wrecking ball made of charisma and chaos, just flipping the whole vibe on its head.  Every time I spun the album, I ended up replaying those two songs because they hit with this intensity, this personality, this undeniable spark. 
Clipse came back swinging, welcome back



BMTH - Post Human: Next Gen 
Fave songs: Kool Aid, Limousine, Darkside, “N/A”, Amen, “Dig It”
Look, the metal police can complain all they want — BMTH put out one of those guilty pleasure albums I kept reaching for because it really is just that good. It’s wild, it’s messy, it’s catchy as hell, and it somehow manages modern day BMTH, meets Deftones in Blur’s backyard for a techno-metal-sad boi-mish-mash.  Gleefully pounding genres with a sledgehammer just to see what sounds cool. Then there was that awesomely hilarious video of Nik Nocturnal drunk ’n streaming getting all emotional to the track “Dig It”, and ruth be told, I was right there with him doing the same thing.
I blasted it all year with zero shame.




Knocked Loose - Spotify Top 10
Fave songs:  “Suffocate feat: Poppy", “Slaughterhouse 2 feat: Chris Motionless”

“Suffocate" might be my favorite heavy track I listened to this year, something so primal and heavy so many change ups in tempo, that insanely cool build up with Poppy's voice… And to top it all off that breakdown with the “reggaeton" drum beat captures the zeitgeist.  The rest of the album slams just as hard, and browsing through their top 10 tracks reminded me of why they're at the forefront of hard-core these days.




Slaughter To Prevail - Grizzly + Kostolom + Behelit EP
Fave songs: “Bratva", “Behelit”, "Imdead" 
I could not get “Behelit” out of my head for DAYS. Every time I put it on, I could practically feel my bloodstream heat up. Alex Terrible sounds like he’s tearing open a portal to the underworld with his lungs, and the band’s right there behind him swinging riffs like ten ton hammers. It’s primal, it’s savage, and it made me stank-face so many times I’m amazed my jaw still works.  And that GUITAR TONE!  This thing is just violence distilled into audio waves. 






Sanguisugabogg - Hideous Aftermath
Fave songs: Felony Abuse Of A Corpse (feat: Peeling Flesh), Semi-automatic Facial Reconstruction

I’ve never been the biggest death metal fan on record… always made more sense to me live... but man,  … this Sanguisugabogg album is just straight-up sonic barbarism, and I loved every filthy second of it. I felt like I was doing something illegal just by listening (those lyrics are FUCKED UP!),. The riffs don’t just hit — they maul. The vocals are savage, the Peeling Flesh feature absolutely rips, and grooves are so nasty you practically need a shower afterward. No pretense, no polish, just pure, swamp-dwelling death metal.  For all its gore-soaked chaos, it hits a primal nerve, reminding me why I fell in love with the heavier, uglier corners of metal in the first place.




Linkin Park - Emptiness Machine
Fave songs: "Two-Faced" "Emptiness Machine", "Over Each Other"
This new chapter of Linkin Park hit me way harder than I expected. BOLD move getting a female front person, and it paid off.  Emily Armstrong stepped in with this grit and raw power that doesn’t try to replace anything — she just plants her flag and goes. Shindoa dropping lyrical gems all over, “I only wanted to be part of something...” , man… who can’t relate to that?  But it’s all about “Two Faced”, just an absolute classic LP banger of a track.  Saw LP on their first tour opening for Orgy in the small downstairs room of the Maritime Hall in SF, been a fan ever since, and It makes me happy to see them making relevant, dynamic, new music and moving on.  The album is emotional, massive, and feels like a band refusing to be a relic of nostalgia. A hell of a return.

APRIL 2026
11th • Copenhagen, DK 🇩🇰
13th • Hamburg, DE 🇩🇪
15th • Warsaw, PL 🇵🇱
17th • Zwickau, DE 🇩🇪
18th • Berlin, DE 🇩🇪
19th • Vienna, AT 🇦🇹
20th • Munich, DE 🇩🇪
22nd • Milan, IT 🇮🇹
23rd • Marseille, FR 🇫🇷
24th • Toulouse, FR 🇫🇷
25th • Pamplona, ES 🇪🇸
27th • Madrid, ES 🇪🇸
28th • Lisbon, PT 🇵🇹
29th • Malaga, ES 🇪🇸
30th • Barcelona, ES 🇪🇸

MAY 2026
2nd • Paris, FR 🇫🇷
3rd • Strasbourg, FR 🇫🇷
4th • Saarbrücken, DE 🇩🇪
6th • Ludwigsburg, DE 🇩🇪
7th • Wiesbaden, DE 🇩🇪
8th • Cologne, DE 🇩🇪
9th • Fribourg, CH 🇨🇭
11th • Tilburg, NL 🇳🇱
12th • Brussels, BE 🇧🇪
14th • Glasgow, UK 🇬🇧
15th • Manchester, UK 🇬🇧
16th • Wolverhampton, UK 🇬🇧
17th • London, UK 🇬🇧

👉🏻 TICKETS:

A LETTER TO THE HEAD CASES

From Robb

Head Cases,

I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a Machine Head show… a Machine Fuckin' Head show.
People talk about the riffs, the circle pits, the sweat, the beers, the chaos—and yeah, all of that is part of who we are. It always has been.

But there’s something else.
Something I didn’t fully understand until years into doing this.

It’s the singing.

The way you take our songs... songs we wrote in a cold Oakland rehearsal room, in dark places, in moments of pain, struggle, or heartbreak—and you turn them into something bigger. Something yours.

I’ve stood on stages all over the world, guitar hanging off my shoulder, lights blinding my eyes, sweat dripping down my face… and then I hear it:

You. All of you. Singing louder than the PA. Singing like the song belongs to you—and it does.

That feeling… I can’t compare it to anything else in my life.

There was a show a while back—honestly, I can’t even remember what city it was—but during “Darkness Within,” the crowd came in so strong on that first line I actually stepped back from the mic. Just… let it happen. And as I listened, I felt something shift inside me. Like, this is why we’re here.
This connection.
This shared voice.

It’s not a performance anymore.
It becomes a conversation.
A communion.

And that’s why we’re doing this tour.

“AN EVENING WITH MACHINE HEAD” — EUROPE / UK APRIL & MAY 2026

No openers.
No limits.
Just 3 hours of anthems, deep cuts, ragers & epics, the songs you’ve screamed so loud we could feel it in our bones.

I want these nights to feel like those rare shows where everything clicks and the world falls away. Where we can dig into the catalog, take our time, talk, play, improvise, go places we haven’t gone in years… or ever.

I want to see you jump until the floor shakes.
I want to hear those first words of “Halo” explode like a war cry.
I want to hear that massive “Let freedom ring” during “Davidian” that rattles the walls.
I want to feel the whole room move as one.

These are the nights where the band and the fans become the same damn thing.

Pre-sale tickets start today.
I hope you’ll be there with us.
I hope you’ll bring your voice.
Because we’re going to need it.

With love, rage, and gratitude
- Robb
**MACHINE F*ING HEAD**

👉🏻 TICKETS:

AUSTRALIA, LET'S RAGE.  
**"EVENING WITH" SIDE SHOWS ANNOUNCED**

**EVENING WITH MACHINE HEAD

NOVEMBER
🇦🇺 29th • Astor Theater, Perth **VENUE CHANGE**

DECEMBER 2025
🇦🇺 1st • The Station, Sunshine Coast **
🇦🇺 3rd • UC Refectory, Canberra **
🇦🇺 5th • Good Things - Melbourne
🇦🇺 6th • Good Things - Sydney
🇦🇺 7th • Good Things - Brisbane

TIX: 👉🏻 https://goodthingsfestival.com/sideshows/machine-head

We found out that Ozzy had passed away from Sky News 20 minutes before we walked on stage to the opening night of our European tour. In a state of sadness and shock we made the decision to forgo our usual opening setlist.  Following our intro of Ozzy's "Diary of a Madman" (that we've opened every Machine Head show with for the last 30+ years) we started the show with two Black Sabbath songs. "War Pigs" and "Children of the Grave", everyone sang, everyone knew tonight meant something, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

There's so much more to say about the power of the Ozzy's songs, but for now, we'll let his music do the talking

Our deepest condolences to Black Sabbath, Ozzy's band, and the Osbournes

-Robb

DESTROYEROFHARMONY has written a thoroughly in-depth review of our latest album "UNATØNED"

---------------

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.

\::/

MACHINE HEAD'S MONUMENTAL 11TH ALBUM "UNATØNED" IS OUT EVERYWHERE

Bay Area icons MACHINE HEAD unveil their crushing new second single, 'BØNESCRAPER'. The release features a new music video as well as the announcement of the special BØNESCRAPER edition LP of UNATØNED (shipping June 17). Watch the music video directed by Mike Sloat.

MACHINE HEAD comments, “This one is for those of us with darkness in our heart, a song about love lost, and a song for those who fail at love... but keep on trying… hence, we scrape our bones to numb the pain”

Pre-order & pre-save UNATØNED:
https://machinehead.bfan.link/unatoned

Stream 'BØNESCRAPER'
https://machinehead.bfan.link/bonescraper

WATCH: 'BØNESCRAPER' Music Video👇🏻

‼️🚨NEW VINYL COLOR ALERT‼️🚨
🛒 A new Bone with Black & Red BØNESCRAPER edition LP of UNATØNED is now available for pre-order. The new vinyl color ships June 17th.

SHOP: 👉🏻TEN TON TRADING CO.

PRE-ORDER "BØNESCRAPER" PREMIUM WHITE / BLØØD TEE