Machine Head: The Blackening

Holy crap, Machine Head released a good album! Only took ten years. Seriously, I used to be all over these dude's jocks in HS, back in the Burn My Eyes and The More Things Change days. I remember thinking Block & Ten Ton Hammer were the sickest, heaviest songs in the history of music till I got into death metal.

Then came their limp korn years, with The Burning Red being a complete let-down to my ears. Rapping, that bouncy, rubbery sound of the late 90's (you know, that Korn "one-note breakdown" sound), and angsty vocals brought it down low, to Load levels. Now, in fairness, time has actually been halfway kind to that album (Mike is ashamed of me as he reads this); with a couple of tracks at least seeming genuine & heartfelt (Five, I Deny, Desire to Fire). But the quality was still an unforgiveable dropoff & reeked of "sellout". I won't even go into the stab-at-the-mainstream debacle of "Supercharger".

They actually came back with a decent release 2 or 3 years ago, but time hasn't been so kind to that one, with only one really awesome track (Imperium - fuck yeah) capturing their former greatness. But The Blackening? Can you say, "Best album since Burn My Eyes"? That's right, even better than The More Things Change, with only one downer (Now I Lay Thee Down, kinda boring), and freakin' tons of thrashy angry solos.

That last part makes me especially happy; noone ever devotes huge chunks of album time to lengthy, shredding guitar solos anymore. Apparently Robb Flynn and Phil Demmel (who is the guy they should've had from the start, forget Logan Mader and that N'Sync-looking fool) have been listening to their old mid & late 80's metal albums, because every song has melt-your-face solos that go on for days. It's like Flynn woke up and remembered, "oh shit, I used to shred in Vio-Lence back in the day, wonder if I still can?" and just went to town.

I'm not a fan of Flynn's singing voice, and his hoarse voice seems to be lacking something; I can't put my finger on it, but it just kinda lacks the fire it had back in the early days. Otherwise, though, there's not a single Korn or nu-metal element to be found; if anything, even less so than on Burn My Eyes. This is metal 100% through & through, the way it oughtta be. Thrashy, chugging riffs, and even a couple of Maiden-esque "galloping guitars" moments bring a big, stupid smile to my face. Welcome back, MH. I'm still a little mad at you, but more albums like this, and all's forgiven.

Comicistas!

I unfortunately didn;t get any free comics Saturday; I was at work and didn't get to the store till almost 4, by which point the good stuff was gone. Oh well. I got a free Mr. Mxyzptlk pin... yay.

Wonder Man 5: Not PAD's best work, this series, but not bad either. It works as a character study for Wonder Man, in terms of fleshing him out for the first time in ages and making him seem like an actual character, with a personality and everything, rather than some dude who shows up for Avengers group shots. I'm not a big fan of the art (except for the two isses Todd Nauck did); I tried to like it but the cartoony style just doesnt fit, plus the artist seems to get lazy on a few ages and hand in some really sketchy-looking stuff. Any maybe it's me, but the Beast shouldn't look like a breakfast cereal mascot. B-, both for this issue and the series as a whole. OK stuff, but completely missable.

Silent War 4: This, on the other hand, is an awesome series. Intelligently written, good balancing of subplots, and fantastic, moody artwork that manages to be cartoony while being simultaneously creepy and expressive. Awesome, with the only major flaw being that it's almost impossible to place this series in Marvel continuity, unless a ton of time has passed since the first issue. I'm willing to overlook it, frankly, because it's so good.

52 Week 52: Thank christ, this shit is over. Actually, this issue was one of the better of the series, although the ending sequence, where Booster and Supernova defeat Mr. Mind, didn't make a tiny bit of sense to me. Maybe I read it too quickly. It's a solid issue otherwise, although it's a bit too cutesy that earth split into 52 copies of themselves, which then just happened to get turned into their pre-crisis counterparts by Mr. Mind's chance manipulations. Not really buying it, but otherwise, this was a pretty fun issue. I have a problem with the fact that, rpior to the last few weeks, this series really didn;t do a whole lot to build up to it, but I've already said my piece on the subject. This issue: B+. 52 as a whole: D