GRASPOP FESTIVAL WAS A TRIUMPH!
By Machine Head
Relive the action captured by the Machine Head camera from our triumphant headline slot atop the amazing Graspop Metal Meeting
By Machine Head
Relive the action captured by the Machine Head camera from our triumphant headline slot atop the amazing Graspop Metal Meeting
By Machine Head
By Machine Head
100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time
A message from Robb:
I’d like to personally thank Rolling Stone for the inclusion of “Davidian,“ from Machine Head’s 1994 debut album ‘Burn My Eyes’ in their Top 100 Greatest Heavy-Metal Songs of All Time. It was a rare and delightful compliment from a magazine that has largely paid us no mind for the last 29 years.
By Machine Head
Following our wildly successful string of Electric Happy Hour (Live) dates in Scotland, we are bringing the beer-drenched, head-banging, free-wheelin', no-set-list, anything-goes-energy of our weekly online show, but this time to America and now it's LIVE!
Just Machine Head, Evening With-style, but more free-form, you might get 5 songs off of The Blackening, you might get 5 songs off of Burn My Eyes, you might get 5 cover songs, the setlist changes daily, and the beer always flows!!
So come down a rage with us for Electric Happy Hour (Live)
NOVEMBER
8th SPOKANE, WA - Knitting Factory
9th MISSOULA, MT - Top Hat
10th BOISE, ID - Revolution
12th CASPER, WY - The Gaslight Social
13th COLORADO SPRINGS, CO - Black Sheep
15th MINOT, ND - The Original
16th FARGO, ND - The Hall at Fargo Brewing
18th SIOUX FALLS, SD - Bigs Bar
19th LINCOLN, NE - The Royal Grove
20th SPRINGFIELD, MO - Outland Ballroom
21st ST. LOUIS, MO - Red Flag
22nd MADISON, WI - High Noon Saloon *SOLD-OUT*
23rd INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Deluxe at Old National Center
25th JOLIET, IL - The Forge
26th FLINT, MI - Machine Shop *SOLD-OUT*
27th COLUMBUS, OH - A&R Music Bar
28th CINCINNATI, OH - Legends
29th BROOKLYN, NY - St. Vitus *JUST ADDED*
DECEMBER
1st PORTLAND, ME - Portland House of Music
2nd ASBURY PARK, NJ - Stone Pony
3rd READING, PA - Reverb
4th BALTIMORE, MD - Soundstage
6th VIRGINIA BEACH, VA - Elevation 27
7th HUNTINGTON, WV - The Loud
8th CHARLOTTE, NC - Underground
9th NASHVILLE, TN - Eastside Bowl
10th CHARLESTON, SC - Music Farm
12th FT. LAUDERDALE, FL - Culture Room
13th TAMPA, FL - Orpheum
15th LITTLE ROCK, AR - The Hall
16th OKLAHOMA CITY, OK - Diamond Ballroom
17th WICHITA, KS - Wave
18th DALLAS, TX - Granada Theater
20th ALBUQUERQUE, NM - Sunshine Theater
21st TUCSON, AZ - The Rock
22nd SAN DIEGO, CA - House Of Blues
23rd SACRAMENTO, CA - Ace of Spades
By Robb Flynn
By Machine Head
Bay Area metal icons MACHINE HEAD unleash their incendiary 10th studio album, 'ØF KINGDØM AND CRØWN’ today, with the collection landing at DSPs and in stores via Nuclear Blast X Imperium Recordings. Stream the new album HERE and pick up your physical copy HERE or via your nearest local record store HERE.
Read Blabbermouth's stunning 10/10 review of ØKAC HERE
To commemorate release day, the band have revealed a brand new video for the album track, 'NØ GØDS, NØ MASTERS', which you can watch below.
Speaking about the new track, MACHINE HEAD founder and visionary, Robb Flynn shares;
"We're really proud of the video for 'NØ GØDS, NØ MASTERS'. It was an incredible collaboration between three different creative teams working across two different continents. Our director/editor Mike Sloat (Machine Head, Testament) teamed up with the amazing Grupa 13 (Behemoth, Amon Amarth) and then the stunning 3-D CGI came from Phil Radford AKA MayaGuy of Strangebox. The track was masterfully mixed by long-time Machine Head collaborator Colin Richardson and his engineer Chris Clancy. This is a really special song from the album."
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By Machine Head
MACHINE HEAD
OF KINGDOM AND CROWN
Nuclear Blast
10 / 10
POUND FOR POUND THE GREATEST RECORD MACHINE HEAD HAVE EVER MADE.
Every album in the MACHINE HEAD catalogue has its merits and charms, but there is a fairly broad consensus that two albums stand out as particularly significant. Released in 1994, "Burn My Eyes" was an epoch-wrecking debut that noisily established Robb Flynn's band as standard bearers for a new breed of heaviness. Released in 2007, "The Blackening" was another serendipitous moment in time, wherein a surge of creativity pushed MACHINE HEAD to new heights, a new level of popularity and the most exhaustive world tour(s) of their career.
Both are certified classics, with the obvious drawback that everything released subsequently has been unfavorably compared to one or both of them. In particular, MACHINE HEAD's last album was a straightforwardly divisive affair, but the persistent narrative that it was some woeful, career-threatening folly doesn't withstand a great deal of scrutiny. Released in 2018, "Catharsis" was a deliberately diverse and unwieldy concoction.
Like its title suggested, it offered a sustained splurge of ideas and a clearing of the emotional decks. Yes, a few tracks incurred the wrath of the overly sensitive by daring to stray a bit too far off the beaten track, but judging by those same tracks' streaming figures — not to mention the almost entirely sold out tour(s) that followed its release, during which those songs were performed to a positive reception — "Catharsis" was perfectly popular enough, at least with MACHINE HEAD's distinctly diehard fan base.
Nonetheless, the perception that Flynn's crew are in desperate need of a comeback persists, and so "Of Kingdom And Crown" arrives under the weight of great expectations. The first MACHINE HEAD album to feature DECAPITATED founder Vogg on guitar, this hour-long tour de force could hardly be a more robust and inarguable response to that external pressure. If people whine about this one, they are going to look extremely fucking silly.
Ferociously focused, bursting at the seams with brilliant songs and ruthlessly contemporary on a sonic level, "Of Kingdom And Crown" showcases the upgrade MACHINE HEAD have undergone over the last few years. Those who saw the band on the ill-fated "Burn My Eyes" reunion tour witnessed both the partial reconvening of the original MH lineup, but also the birth of a newer incarnation, featuring Vogg and drummer Matt Alston, alongside Flynn and bassist Jared McEachern. Those shows demonstrated what fresh blood and a sharper perspective can do, even for a veteran band.
Thrillingly, MACHINE HEAD sounded more precise and destructive than they ever had, and it's that crushing, pointedly hyper-modern approach that defines "Of Kingdom And Crown" too. Here, the drums are performed by noted badass Navene Koperweis (ex-ANIMALS AS LEADERS), but the principle and performance remain the same — tight, brutal, precise — throughout what is easily this band's most vicious and punishing album yet.
The backdrop to all of this is that "Of Kingdom And Crown" is MACHINE HEAD's first concept record. A dystopian tale of existential torment and horrifying violence, it tells the tumultuous tale of two troubled protagonists whose lives entwine, with (as one might hope) deeply unpleasant consequences. For the first time ever, Robb Flynn has written songs from someone's perspective other than his own, and his delight in that freedom is writ large through what is arguably his strongest and most vividly poetic collection of lyrics to date. Manifestly open to endless interpretation, the story has a beginning, middle and somewhat nebulous end, and gives "Of Kingdom And Crown" a level of pre-release intrigue that it might not have otherwise had. Thankfully, what the conceptual conceit doesn't do is distract from the real story here: that is that MACHINE HEAD have crafted a stone-cold masterpiece, and an album that at least deserves to be held in the same high esteem as those two earlier benchmarks.
Frankly, this is an audacious piece of work. "Of Kingdom And Crown" begins with "Slaughter The Martyr", a ten-minute epic with multiple movements, it begins as an elegiac, acoustic hymn that ebbs and flows in an ambient haze for a full three minutes before any drum is struck in anger. MACHINE HEAD have written ten-minute songs before, and some really fucking good ones, but "Slaughter…" is on another level. With numerous exhilarating twists and turns and a final crescendo that ties the melodic threads together in a perfect, bloody bow, it contains every definitive element of the band's sound, but used in a much more imaginative way. In its overpowering entirety, "Slaughter The Martyr" feels momentous: an important line drawn in the creative sand.
Remarkably, everything that follows hits the same heights. Thanks to the drip-drip way that MACHINE HEAD have shared this album with the world, most of these songs will be familiar to dedicated fans, but it is worth repeating how fucking good they are. From the skull-shattering Bay Area snot of "Choke On The Ashes Of Your Hate" and the blastbeat-fuelled euphoria of "Become The Firestorm", to the immersive, prog-tinged pummeling of "Unhallowed" and the crestfallen crunch of "My Hands Are Empty", these were, and are, instantly identifiable as MACHINE HEAD classics. For those craving a dose of old-school Oakland ignorance, "Rotten" has a good dose of "Burn My Eyes" in its veins, but with the heaviness notched up even further. For those that regard "The Blackening" as MACHINE HEAD's undisputed peak, "Arrows In Words From The Sky" is this album's "Halo": a truly beautiful and poignant song, but one that still crushes skulls with a shit-eating grin on its face. To those we can add "Kill Thy Enemies" — a monstrously heavy and belligerent Bay Area throwdown with absurd amounts of singalong potential — and "Bloodshot", an all-out, thuggish riff-riot with zero clean vocals and a bad attitude. Both are likely to cause traffic accidents.
Perhaps even more significant than the self-evident quality of these songs is the fact that every one of them is composed of exquisitely satisfying individual moments. Songwriting is an inexact art, but everything here feels refined to the point of perfection, with each change of tempo or tricky transition making perfect sense, and every moving part humming in perfect synchronicity with those around it. The bug-eyed juggernaut breakdown midway through "Become The Firestorm"; "Unhallowed"'s joyously old-school, fists-in-the-air middle-eight-cum-second-chorus; Flynn and McEachern's clean vocal harmonies, which often border on magical; countless glorious drum fills that will have MACHINE HEAD acolytes frantically battering the air with flailing limbs in sweaty solidarity; the sheer filthiness of the main riff in "Kill Thy Enemies"; the choking enormity of "No Gods, No Masters"' arena-size chorus; the obvious, fizzing, lead guitar chemistry between Flynn and Vogg: on and on it goes, a gluttonous feast of dynamic and timeless metal detonations, built upon the most impressive armory of riffs that Robb Flynn has assembled since any album you care to mention. As an added bonus, "Of Kingdom And Crown" boasts several fiendishly inventive new uses for MACHINE HEAD's trademark harmonic squeals (just in case anyone was thinking of moaning about that).
Listening to this extraordinary hour of music, it's hard to believe that anyone ever doubted that MACHINE HEAD would live to fight another day. A murderous musical rampage that brings passion, technicality and a million great ideas together in a cyclone of massive riffs and even bigger hooks, "Of Kingdom And Crown" is a flawless show of strength: the kind of life-affirming metal album that bands rarely seem to make these days. Pound for pound, it's the greatest record MACHINE HEAD have ever made.
CD'S, DIGIPAK'S, AND CASSETTES SHIPPING NOW!
By Machine Head
FOR RELEASE
Tuesday, June 21st, 2022
MACHINE HEAD
Release New Track and Music Video
“UNHALLØWED”
Watch HERE | Stream HERE
Taken From Colossal 10th Album
'ØF KINGDØM AND CRØWN'
Out Friday, August 26, 2022
via Nuclear Blast x Imperium Recordings
Pre-Orders Available HERE
Tuesday, June 21st, 2022 - Bay Area metal titans, MACHINE HEAD, have dropped mammoth new track, “UNHALLØWED”, today along with an accompanying music video. Stream the new track HERE and watch the official music video “UNHALLØWED” - Live from Electric Happy Hour" HERE. The new track is lifted from the band’s tenth studio album, 'ØF KINGDØM AND CRØWN’ which will be released via Nuclear Blast x Imperium Recordings on August 26th, 2022. Pre-orders available now HERE.
Speaking on the latest track to be released from the upcoming album, MACHINE HEAD founder, Robb Flynn shares;
“UNHALLØWED”: Chapter Six – ‘ØF KINGDØM AND CRØWN’
"Drowning in the deepest depression of his life, Eros is at a breaking point. Collecting heartaches, loss, and near psychotic isolation, “Unhallowed” is the beginning of a powerful shift of our story. An introspective narrative starts the song lyrically, which is a collaborative effort written by myself, Guitarist Wacław "Vogg" Kiełtyka, and Bassist/Backing Vocalist Jared MacEachern and encapsulates the collective strength of this writing team.
"Anchored by an absolutely monstrous groove, the vocals melodically mirror the state of mind of Eros as he reels from the loss of his mother to a drug overdose and begins a slow downward spiral into madness. However, the culmination of the track infuses some much-needed light, but will it be enough?”
MACHINE HEAD’s upcoming album, 'ØF KINGDØM AND CRØWN' is a 13 track concept album set in a decimated futuristic wasteland where the sky is stained crimson red. The crux of the story is based on two main characters:
Character #1 Ares: (pronounced Aries), our main, who loses the love of his life (Amethyst) and goes on a murderous rampage against the vile sect responsible for her murder.
Character #2 Eros: (pronounced Arrows) the perpetrator, who loses his mother to a drug overdose and becomes radicalized in the aftermath. Eros goes off the deep end manifesting his own killing spree.
The lyrics detail how their lives intertwine.
The colossal concept comes with a list of equally colossal packaging for various physical formats including 16 different worldwide vinyl formats, deluxe vinyl box set (with bonus tracks), CDs (both old-school longbox and jewel box options), multi-color cassettes, and a limited-edition Digipak with bonus tracks.
CDs, Digipak, cassettes, and all digital formats will be available on Aug 26th, with all vinyl formats arriving on Nov 25th. Pre-order the new album HERE.
Electric Happy Hour (Live):
August 31 - Glasgow @ Garage (SOLD OUT)
September 4 - Iverness @Ironworks (SOLD OUT)
September 4 - Aberdeen @ Lemontree (SOLD OUT)
September 5 - Dundee @ Fat Sams
September 6 - Edinburgh @ Liquid Room (SOLD OUT)
Machine Head & Amon Amarth "Vikings & Lionhearts" Tour Dates:
SEPTEMBER
08th NOTTINGHAM, Arena
09th CARDIFF, Arena
10th LONDON, Wembley Arena
12th MANCHESTER, Arena
13th DUBLIN, 3 Arena
16th ZURICH, Hallenstadion
17th VIENNA, Stadthalle
18th KRAKOW, Tauron Arena
20th TALLINN, Saku Arena
21st HELSINKI, Ice Hall
23rd OSLO, Spektrum
24th STOCKHOLM, Hovet
26th COPENHAGEN, Forum Black Box
27th HAMBURG, Barclays Arena
28th FRANKFURT, Festhalle
30th OBERHAUSEN, König Pilsener Arena
OCTOBER
01st BERLIN, Velodrom
02nd AMSTERDAM, Afas Live
04th MILANO, Lorenzini District
06th BARCELONA, Sant Jordi
07th MADRID, Vistalegre
08th LA CORUNA, Coliseum
09th LISBON, Campo Pequeno
12th PARIS, Zenith
14th MUNICH, Olympiahalle
15th LEIPZIG, Arena
16th PRAGUE, Tipsport Arena
18th BUDAPEST, Barba Negra
20th ESCH SUR ALZETTE, Rockhal
21st BRUSSELS, Forest National
22nd STUTTGART, Schleyerhalle