subject: Machine Head Albums - From New Wave Pioneers [print this page] If you're a collector of heavy metal music tracks, you should consider getting Machine Head albums. The band behind these is widely credited as the pioneers of new wave heavy metal that has swept the US by storm. Unlike other forms of heavy metal, this one espoused by the group seemingly carries extreme brutality. Surprisingly, it took some time for the group to become popular in America.
The group is the brainchild of vocalist Robb Flynn. He was originally a member of Vio-lence but decided to jump ship after reportedly feeling musically frustrated with his band. Flynn contacted Adam Duce who became the second member of the new band. They recruited drummer Tony Constanza and Logan Mader and the new band was born in 1992 in Oakland, California.
The group signed up under Roadrunner Records. Before they could finish work on their first release, Constanza quit and was replaced by Chris Kontos. The group released their first work, Burn My Eyes in 1994. This proved to be a bestseller for Roadrunner, selling hundreds of thousands of albums internationally. Strangely, it was well accepted in Europe but fewer Americans went crazy over it.
Following the commercial success of the first Machine Head album, they pushed out their second album, The More Things Change... in 1997. It was a little after this development and during the Ozzfest tour that line up problems started to come in anew. Mader quit while still touring and Ahrue Luster took over.
Taking a new member on board coincided with a seeming direction change for the group. This became apparent in their third release, The Burning Red. The work featured elements of rap which came as a surprise to metal traditionalists. The change was not met positively mainly because critics thought the group was trying to improve their popularity by sounding more like other popular mainstream bands. The official word though is that the changes were more a result of a natural evolution that signified fewer style restrictions.
The fourth album, Supercharged, which was released in 2001, carried similar rap vocals as its predecessor. The work did not sell as well as their previous releases. This was perhaps because the band went through issues with its label. The rift stemmed mainly from the Crashing Around You single from the album. Its video featured burning and crashing buildings. The release was badly timed because it was shown only a couple of days after the September 11 attacks. In the following year, Luster left and was eventually replaced by Phil Demmel.
After the issues attached to their fourth release, the band recovered from bad publicity with the release of their fifth album Through the Ashes of Empires in 2003. This was followed by their sixth release, The Blackening in 2007. This took the 53rd slot in the Billboard 200, the highest for the group. The work was considered by many to be the group's most outstanding despite the presence of songs that were ten minutes long.
The Blackening has had its fair share of negative criticisms. Overall though, it has redeemed itself on all counts. It is the one Machine Head album that has earned for the group a Grammy nomination.
