Band:	Machine Head
Album:	Bloodstone & Diamonds
Style:	Groove thrash metal, Progressive thrash metal
Release date:	November 2014

01. Now We Die
02. Killers & Kings
03. Ghosts Will Haunt My Bones
04. Night Of Long Knives
05. Sail Into The Black
06. Eyes Of The Dead
07. Beneath The Silt
08. In Comes The Flood
09. Damage Inside
10. Game Over
11. Imaginal Cells
12. Take Me Through The Fire

Machine Head have had quite a revival in terms of public perception since their nu metal experimentation. The Blackening, with its extended blasts of intense yet melodic and hooky modern thrash, was one of the best received metal releases of the last decade, and a personally significant album. Rather than attempting to outdo the 'epic' nature of that release, they followed it up with Unto The Locust, toning down both the song and album length and making more melodic and arguably accessible songs, without sacrificing their core sound or writing capabilities. The question is, where does the band go next?

Well, for starters, the length is back. The songs are of generally moderate duration for the band, but after they greeted us with their shortest album last time out, we now bear witness to their longest release to date, a whopping 70 minutes. Is it too long? For my money, yes, but there's definitely some solid material in there. As expected from Machine Head, there's a fair number of meaty thrash and hooky groove metal riffs situated throughout the album. Additionally, with 'Ghosts Will Haunt My Bones', we get a return of the kind of intro melodic guitar leads that previously lit up 'Be Still And Know' and 'Halo'. Also keeping to past form, the talents of Flynn and Demmel to write varied and engaging guitar solos remains intact, as demonstrated on several tracks but particularly on 'Killers And Kings' and 'Eyes Of The Dead'. In general then, the core foundations to the music is predictably solid, and comes together to produce an album with a fairly varied sound, opening with the more accessible and crowd-friendly songs, before following with a mix of more intense tracks and some less conventional pieces. Announcing this transition is the album's 'epic', 'Sail Into The Black', which splits its time between an extended soft build-up and a heavy grandstand climax, and that could do with some fat-trimming but which has some really nice stuff in between. Unfortunately, that last line rather sums up my opinions on the album.

There's just too many moments and songs that could easily have been shortened or cut altogether. 'Now We Die', an unimpressive but ultimately adequate opener, has some rather tacky strings stretching the intro and flattening the emotional peaks, alongside an utterly lifeless climax. 'In Comes The Flood' features tedious trudging verses, a forgettable chorus and a truly redundant rant padding out a bloated track with a nice solo and climax. And now I must touch upon the vocals. Flynn's always been able to do solid roaring verse vocals, and has made some really nice choruses with his loud, forceful, melodic shouting/singing voice. However, honestly, he lacks a great soft singing voice. Whilst this wasn't an issue during previous cameos or whilst buried amongst other instruments on 'Sail Into The Black', his multiple lead appearances on this record aren't pleasant, culminating in the extremely tiresome all-soft 'Damage Inside', made worse by his ever-present breathing. Additionally, his tendency to include over-dramatic narrating/ranting vocal parts into songs has also turned from a rarity into a regular feature here, and instead of adding emphasis to significant moments in songs, it just becomes irritating and forced. Finally, I don't know what the heck 'Game Over' is trying to be but I really do not like it in the slightest, and 'Imaginal Cells' is a lesser effort than 'Real Eyes, Realize, Real Lies' at making a powerful social commentary sound-bite track. All these niggles individually wouldn't matter, but together become a collection of irritations that ultimately detract from my overall opinion of the record.

After all that negativity, I want to restate that I generally like the album. I think there are a number of good riffs, nice solos, and ultimately several strong songs, like 'Ghosts Will Haunt My Bones', 'Beneath The Silt' and 'Sail Into The Black'. However, this is a much less focused album than Unto The Locust and far less consistent than The Blackening, with too many excesses and niggles to match up to recent efforts. So, to answer the question of where the band went next, they chose somewhere between their past two releases, with both the good and bad that comes with that.

And yes, the review is long, but so is the album, so perhaps it's appropriate.