Released: April 25, 2025
Machine Head have spent much of the past two decades giving songs room to sprawl. ØF KINGDØM AND CRØWN opened with ten minutes of scene-setting, and even its shorter tracks made space for extended bridges and guitar sections. For UNATØNED, Robb Flynn started with a different set of rules: shorter songs, unexpected chord changes, and a final chorus that had to differ musically from the first. Not every song stayed below four minutes, but he kept cutting. At under 42 minutes, it became Machine Head’s shortest album. What happens when a band with this many musical impulses gives itself less room to connect them?
After the footsteps and distant piano of “LANDSCAPE ØF THØRNS,” “ATØMIC REVELATIØNS” moves quickly through fast-picked guitars, barked verses and a wide clean chorus. Matt Alston follows the low guitar accents with tightly placed double kick, while Jared MacEachern reinforces the riff without muddying its outline. The mix leaves every stop and drum hit exposed. “UNBØUND” is even more compact. A reverse pitch bend twists the main groove, the stuttering riff leaves holes for Flynn’s voice, and the refrain appears before the song can wander.
The shorter format also makes Reece Scruggs’ role clear on his first Machine Head album. He and Flynn trade and harmonize leads without holding up the songs to display them. Their break in “THESE SCARS WØN’T DEFINE US” grows directly from the rapid thrash rhythm before dropping back into the repeated “one life” chorus. The album version removes the tour single’s guest vocalists, leaving Flynn’s rasp and MacEachern’s backing voice to turn the lyric into a band-room chant.
The method gets shakier when the arrangements reach outside thrash and groove metal. “ØUTSIDER” combines handclaps, string-like synths, and a nearly four-on-the-floor beat with a low, bouncing guitar part. Flynn’s clean chorus opens the song up, though its glossy lift sits slightly apart from the clipped verse riff. “BØNESCRAPER” makes a similar jump between its crawling late-’90s bounce and the open “whoa-oh” refrain. The parts are separated clearly enough that you can sometimes hear the assembly.
Elsewhere, those modern production choices create useful space. “DUSTMAKER” interrupts the album with a woman’s spoken message drifting through an electronic wash. “BLEEDING ME DRY” develops that texture into a full arrangement, beginning with a sparse trip-hop pulse before the guitars open into a slow, ugly chord pattern. Flynn moves from a close, nearly pleading delivery to a harsher chorus. Underneath him, Alston and MacEachern shift between minimal beats and a blunt, dragging groove. The changes work because they follow the lyric’s emotional decline.
The lyrics give the album more unity than its changing sound initially suggests. “ØUTSIDER” cuts off a toxic relationship. “BØNESCRAPER,” “ADDICTED TØ PAIN” and “BLEEDING ME DRY” examine love through failure, dependency, and suffocation. “NØT LØNG FØR THIS WØRLD” turns toward mortality, with Flynn singing over melodic guitars instead of trying to overpower them. His clean voice is most convincing in these exhausted moments, where the cracks matter more than the size of the chorus.
“SCØRN” answers the question. Piano, synth haze, and Flynn’s exposed vocal hold the first half. When the guitars, bass, and drums enter with a syncopated figure, they deepen the song’s disillusionment with failed heroes instead of changing the subject. The tighter format pulls Machine Head’s different instincts together when every musical turn follows the same emotion. It also exposes the seams when sections chase separate payoffs. UNATØNED gains focus by making the band choose quickly, and its strongest songs use that limited space to stay with wounds the lyrics never pretend have healed.
Written by Rob Joncas for DeadNoteMedia.
Artist information and music courtesy of the band.
© 2025 DeadNoteMedia. All rights reserved.
DeadNoteMedia 