Band:	Machine Men
Album:	Scars & Wounds
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	2003

01. Against The Freaks
02. The Gift
03. The Beginning Of The End
04. Silver Dreams
05. Man In Chains
06. Betrayed by Angels
07. Victim
08. Scars & Wounds

Machine Men is one of those new Finnish bands that is growing and growing each day. And it's not a real usurpation because I had the luck to see them live last year and you can be sure that their performance was nice and promising. Machine Men will probably never become a new legendary Heavy Metal band but they don't follow the Finnish Power Metal trend and their Heavy Metal is nice, so I you don't know yet the first release of the band, you should have a look on it.

I enjoy this album because even if Machine Men comes from Finland they never chose to use the "Finnish sound", or well if they use it, it's really hard to hear those influences if you see what I mean. At the opposite they play a really nice Heavy Metal in the vein of Edguy. Extremely melodic their music is catchy and some of the songs of the albums like "Against The Freaks" with its great chorus or the "Maiden influenced" "Silver Dreams" are nice pieces of music.

The only problem of this album actually comes from its originality. Let's be honest, they're just nothing new on this release and that's a bit sad on a side because Machine Men has, without any doubt, a big potential. The musicians are good and Antony, the singer, is just a really good singer so? (On the other hand, since that this review is a come back to the first release of the band and now that I know their new ones, it seems that Machine Men is trying to take some new risks now, even if I have to say that they're always a bit too much classic for me?).

So ok, with this album the Finnish combo didn't produced anything new? This is extremely classic yes, but for a first album it was a great start and I understand now why the band had the luck to find a lot of success. All the Melodic Heavy Metal fans should try this good album of Heavy.