Machine Head - Catharsis

Machine Head’s Catharsis comes with a ton of context to address. Anyone paying attention to the majority of big metal publications right now has already seen Robb Flynn gracing multiple covers and giving numerous interviews about the album and freely expressing his opinions about everything surrounding it. The main context around which this album is centered spans about two years before this record’s release. I’ll have to break it up, but I’m going to start from the beginning.

Dimebash 2016:

What sparked this whole thing began at a concert on January 22nd honoring late Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrel, at which Robb Flynn was playing. Of course, former Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo was performing there as well and, clearly, after too much indulgence in alcoholic beverages, he bid the crowd a good night at the end of the set with the added bonus of a Nazi salute shouting “white power” at the front row. Recordings of it were uploaded very soon after and obviously the online reception was disapproving to say the least. About a week later, Robb Flynn compounded the buzz around the situation in his own video entitled, “Robb Flynn - Racism in Metal”. In the video Robb essentially calls the incident a last straw of many stupid racist slip-ups from the Pantera frontman, including an encounter the two had backstage on the night of the Dimebash concert in which Phil allegedly (and probably drunkenly) criticized Robb’s more nu metal and rap metal approach with Machine Head on The Burning Red and Supercharger, to Robb’s face, calling it “the nigger era of Machine Head”. Robb continues in the video to say that his patience with Phil has run out, he asserts that Phil is a bully, and declares that he will never play another Pantera song again. Anger then became directed towards Robb, naturally, with people accusing him of lying, capitalizing on the situation for publicity, SJW virtue signaling, etc.

My feelings on the whole thing were kind of mixed. In the video Robb went into a few political topics and made some arguments that I agreed with and some I did not, but overall, I respected and still do respect him for making the bold and honest statement that he did, especially considering the backlash he knew he might (and did) get. As for Phil, I know that alcohol has long been a vice for him and that it has repeatedly led to really stupid outbursts, others of which have been similarly racist, and whether he is or is not racist is not the witch hunt I wanted to get into due to me not knowing him or much of his past actions well, especially considering the confounding variable of his alcoholism, which he has long been needing to fix. Regardless of whether HE is a highly racist person, his “white power” goof was indeed a racist action, unacceptable, stupid, degrading, and not something to sweep under the rug as Robb attests people scared of Phil have been doing for years with regard to other times the Pantera singer has fucked up. A big problem I see with discussions of people’s racism is that it’s often so black and white. I mean, maybe he’s not a klansman, but he’s at least racist enough to do some stupid-ass Nazi salutes and yell “white power” on stage. Consequently, I think what racism he does hold/display should be addressed with an appropriate response. He’s not on the same level of racism as a klansman, and treatment of a racist condition as though he were would naturally cause some adverse reactions and end up being counterproductive. I’m not a supporter of gratuitous call-out culture, but there does come a time when prior steps fail to correct a person’s action and something more severe like this is unfortunately needed, which Robb provided. My only issue with Rob’s video is that I think Robb in his passion, perhaps, combatted Phil’s racism too aggressively, incorrectly attributing some symptoms of racist action entirely to a diagnosis of racist beliefs, when alcoholism was likely an important condition to consider as well.

“Is There Anybody Out There”:

Only a few months later (June 2016), Machine Head released a very melodic, groovy single (which I enjoyed) with a sound connective with their previous effort, Bloodstone & Diamonds, with added Supercharger vibes. While the stir around the Dimebash incident hadn’t fully died down, the single’s lyrical content certainly revived it. In the song, Robb delivers a convicting and passionate message to his peers and the metal community as a whole about speaking up about the kinds of difficult problems Phil’s incident brought to the surface within the metal community. Robb asks if anyone else is scared like he was to come out and address what he did. He asks if people fear the consequences of talking about it or if they fear they won’t like what they find if they turn that stone over.

It’s a valid question still, and while I’m pretty optimistic that metal’s general focus on thriving as an outcast genre has kept racial differences pretty irrelevant for the most part and made the community largely accepting, the ugly facets of metal like NSBM shouldn’t be ignored for what they are. And unfortunately, the biggest problem this song and this incident continue to shine light on is, not the racism in metal community, but the unwillingness for the most part of the metal community to address what may be racist in metal, indeed possibly out of fear that it may be more than what they expect, as seen by people too eager to just sweep Phil’s insulting and divisive actions under the rug because it might be uncomfortable to deal with one’s favorite artist potentially being racist. I have seen a few blatant racists crawl out of the cracks to lash out at Robb and company. I do still believe that the metal community probably doesn’t have a tremendous racism problem though, and if it does, it’s very well hidden and small. The release of this song, though, seemed to be the conception of a semi-annoying public behavior from Robb.

Robb’s Public Identity:

With the bold video and the subsequent single, Robb had essentially branded himself (even if not explicitly or all by himself) a spokesperson for the subject of race and racism in metal and over time a huge part of his publicity since 2016 became centered around his stance on the issues he addressed. Gradually though, Robb became very comfortable using his platform as a soapbox to bullhorn his broader political opinions. Now I’m not one of those fools that think famous people for some reason shouldn’t use their free speech and their platform to express their views, in fact I respect Robb continuing to express himself despite continuous anger over his dissenting opinions. My issue with it is when it just becomes barking surface-y argumentative clichés, without much substance, like the solo sidewalk preacher who warns of eternal damnation. Under the guise of starting conversation, it’s more often meant to provoke retaliation. Over time, Robb made his presence within the metal community one of upfront expression of his political beliefs on topics difficult to discuss; entirely respectable. But what eventually started leaving a sour taste in my mouth was that Robb’s motivation seemed to eventually center around trying to be “woke” about a myriad of issues and trying to broadcast that rather than actually delving into the nuances of the issues and providing unique perspective or well-constructed arguments for his views, unfortunately giving his naysayers a bit of credence they didn’t have before. The difference between Robb’s discourse that builds his current public presence and his discourse about racism in metal in his infamous video and “Is There Anybody Out There?” is pretty simple. In the latter, Robb is immersed, he knows what he’s talking about. He’d seen Phil get the pass from media outlets and he’d seen how much of metal’s artistic community feared confronting Phil. As for the broader political issues outside metal culture Robb continues to address, he shows himself to not exactly be a sage of wisdom on most subjects, which is fine, he’s not required to be any kind of expert on to be allowed to talk about such topics. But it becomes entirely understandable that people who disagree with him decry him as a virtue signaler when he continues to use the band’s Facebook page and many of the interviews he gives as his pulpit to parrot political catchphrases (which has the right to do). Like with his video in 2016, I agree with him on some of the basic things he says and disagree on others, but that’s not the point. The point is that Robb is continuously pushing away the metal community, which he’s supposedly trying to help, with a preachy attitude that seems to be a bit more about himself at this point than the issues themselves.

Pre-release Reviews

In the weeks leading up to the release of Catharsis, a few reviews from journalists who of course received promotional copies were published, signaling some generally mixed feelings across the board for the album. In a strange PR move, Machine Head shared on their social media pages two particularly negative reviews by Jeff Treppel for Decibel magazine and by Andrew Bansal for MetalAssault (a few weeks apart), with a direct “fuck you” to Jeff Treppel included. I read their reviews and found flaws in both. Bansal’s review especially was indeed actually very poorly written and immature (he attests that nu metal is as big now as it was in its heyday… what?!?!), but he didn’t get a “fuck you”, and the inappropriate aggression made Machine Head (or just Robb) look thin-skinned and childish, unable to handle criticism. It was pretty unfair to Jeff Trepel especially, who basically stated, fairly, that Machine Head have done and can do better. But what this broadcasting of negative reception by the band themselves indicated to me was that they simply wanted to piss people off, which sounds punk rock and all, but pissing off the people who are intending to listen to your album, and then you reacting negatively to the negative reception you kind of wanted… it looks petty and confrontational, without much of a purpose. I know Robb has been in the throes of griping with part of the metal community for a while now, but making an album just to stir the pot and push buttons does no one any good. Why not, instead, strive to make an album so excellent, so well-crafted, so undeniably masterful (like something else they made back in 2007) that it actually changes minds, actually wins people over, actually makes it hard for stubborn skeptics and cynics to say “no” to it? Responding to negative reviews with unfair vitriol only made Robb and company look childishly incapable of handling criticism and the album seem like it was, from some angles, meant to not be considered good. On that note, it’s time for me to get into the content of the album itself.

Catharsis

Like its predecessor, Catharsis is an album that finds its strength in its variety, but with that variety comes some pitfalls, so to talk about this album as a connective whole would be really difficult and kind of clumsy. Therefore I am going to do song by song analysis, which is going to get bulky, but thorough, and afterward I will give some conclusive thoughts.

The first lyric of the opening track, “Volatile”, being the all too broadly defeatist and adolescently upset “fuck the world” kind of soils Robb’s supposed intention of the album reaching out to help improve the world (if he is trying to do that and not just stoke the flames). During the chorus, he simply states that “these times are volatile”, and the hardcore breakdown (which I can’t help but feel is riding Code Orange’s younger coattails) that follows the Slipknot-esque riffs and unusually distastefully dissonant gang vocals is ruined by the rather rudimentary resistance chants “break it, smash it, burn it to the ground”. Again, I feel like Robb wanted to channel the raw hardcore aggression of Code Orange with the simple, aggressive lyrics at the bridge, but after two verses and a chorus that add up to disconnected complaining and stating the obvious, the political rally clichés don’t muster any real fire. After hearing it was written and recorded in one day, the same day as the Charlottesville riot (without ample time to meditate on what to say of the events), I’m not surprised at how first-draft-ish the song sounds.

The second track, “Catharsis”, goes for the melodic anthem song type with a heavy climax Machine Head made so well in spades on Bloodstone & Diamonds, and in fact it feels as though it could have fit well on or even come straight from the sessions of that album. As kind of a “Darkness Within” mixed with “Now We Die”, it feels a bit recycled for Machine Head though, but not nearly as recycled as the next track

“Beyond the Pale” gained some early criticism upon its release as a single for its use of a groove almost identical to that of the Strapping Young Lad classic, “Love?”. Whether that was the intent or not, I have no idea, maybe Robb has said something about it in one of his dozens of recent interviews. If it was, hey, at least it was a fuckin’ sweet riff worth stealing; hell, I wished I came up with that sick riff when I first heard Devy play it. Aside from the riff being impossible to dissociate from Devin’s, the song is a pretty anthemic tune about not seeking the approval of the “willfully blind”. The lyrics are nothing super poetic or original and the rhyme in the chorus is somewhat forced, but it grooves and it lifts about as much as a Machine Head song of its type can be expected to.

“California Bleeding” is the album’s drinking song, with a bit of a The More Things Change… groove, its lyrics are pretty one-note and a simple statement about how expensive shit is in the state, which it is, but it’s got a few clever lines among all the intoxicant indulgence it summons. There are some shitty songs about California, but this one takes a bit of a different approach to its description of the state, which keeps it from descending to a “Hotel California” kind of low.

The down-tuned groove-banger “Triple Beam” (referring to the scale often used to balance narcotics in illicit deals) walks through the paranoia and addiction of the season of Robb’s (and others’) life that involved heavy drug use. The eerie, low-key verses accent the chronic paranoia surrounding the drug-dealing culture Robb was involved in, and the punch of the chorus sound of the highs and the crushing lows that propelled Robb away from the lifestyle. It’s a pretty solid track, until the bridge, which features possibly the worst clean vocal passage I’ve ever heard on a Machine Head album. It’s terribly performed, it reminds me of all the Sum 41-esque bands I tried to avoid in middle school, and it makes no sense between the shivering descriptions of drug-abuse and the tale of Robb’s friend stabbing someone at 1:30 in the morning at a gas station in Oakland.

“Kaleidoscope”, finds Robb Flynn reusing the rhythmic pattern of “Night of Long Knives” during the verses with, again, lyrics about a more spiritual love for music than what religion does for Robb very similar to those already penned on “Darkness Within”. Robb also continues to kind of overuse the gruff and ugly vocal style that made “Night of Long Knives” gritty and sharp among all of Bloodstone & Diamonds’ anthems. The song finds its way to a breakdown of sorts featuring Machine Head’s signature harmonic accents used pretty well, but not too uniquely. The lyrics about not giving a fuck and middle fingers in the air are pretty tired by now for the album and for the band, but they’re not totally unbearable. All in all, with its pretty uplifting chorus and well-organized grooves, it’s not an entirely bad song.

“Bastards” is where things do get pretty dicey again. A song in the Celtic punk style of Dropkick Murphys, the band move instrumentally from acoustic strumming behind breathy humming to injecting the type of intensity and groove they’re so proficient at into the more foreign style, which actually ends up making a pretty well-done blend, and it’s definitely a good moment of uniqueness on the album. As for the lyrics, the song serves as a message to Robb’s sons about not losing hope and giving in to fear despite the current political climate. As expected, he condemns President Trump, Wall Street, 2nd Amendment “thugs”, racists, and “rednecks living in the past.” For all the backlash it received when it was released as a single, it’s really not that preachy, and it really is a track that seems like Robb is trying to rally people together rather than further split them apart (even if he still is doing a bit of that with broad group generalizations). It’s the opposite of what his pre-release lashing out at negative reviews was doing. I don’t agree with every single implied sentiment in the song, and that’s in part because it’s a song and the sentiments are broad, not every facet can be addressed. But how this song pissed so many people off and caused them to reject Machine Head so brashly, mostly out of political differences first and then musical differences, just reads to me like thin-skinned whiners upset someone else has a different opinion. I’m hardly any kind of “SJW” and this song, to me, doesn’t seem much more “SJW-metal”, as some have called it, than most of what’s out in metal right now and what Robb has expressed on previous albums. The Blackening was hardly Robb avoiding politics. I do have a problem with music lazily pandering by reciting tired talking points with nothing to add, and on this song Robb is not pandering. He is at least being authentic, which I can appreciate.

“Hope Begets Hope” is where the album gets kind of boring. It’s a pretty lyrically unexciting song about weathering vague adversity and with a pretty bland anthemic chorus compared to what Machine Head have written and hardly any grooves to remember much of the song by, it’s just not passionate enough or unique enough to beget much more than a shrug.

“Screaming at the Sun” at least picks it back up with a nice metalcore groove under some darkly ethereal choral vocals. The chess-metaphors in the lyrics end up at a kind of forced finish, but the falsetto-sung bridge ups the haunting factor to redeem it a bit as Robb switches to a few more resistance lines about not allowing tyranny to become normalized. It’s nothing super preachy or even super unique, but it’s a solid track.

“Behind a Mask” is a low point again for the album: a kind of acoustic ballad, that I think sounds in part inspired by Opeth (especially considering its mournful lyrics), executed in cheesy fashion. It ends up sounding like a typical millennial attempt at early 2010’s “indie” during the choruses. Lyrically, it’s nothing to write home about either; it’s about coping with grief and putting on a “mask” of put-togetherness to get through and avoid others’ worry. I can see what the band was going for and I appreciate them including a slower song to break up the heaviness, but songs like “Damage Inside” and “The Burning Red” show that they could have done a lot better.

The album’s longest track, “Heavy Lies the Crown”, is somewhat justified in its length. At least moving through a number of passages, it sounds like something that may have existed in between The Blackening and Unto the Locust. For a song trying to be epic though, it doesn’t quite bring as many highs and lows, aside from starting at a mellow whisper and escalating to a moderately paced groove, to quite capture that feeling. And for a band with “Sail into the Black”, “A Farewell to Arms”, “Clenching the Fists of Dissent”, “I Am Hell”, and “Halo” under their belt, this one is going to have a hard time standing out.

“Psychotic” sounds about as close to something off Burn My Eyes as anything gets on this album, and its heavy bass guitar riffing helps add to the nice retro groove/thrash blend that’s actually pretty well-executed in through the modern guitar tone and production board. Lyrically it’s a bit more abstract (fitting for the title and the state of mind it describes), flashing tortured thoughts and paranoia throughout the lines, which at some point imply an injectable drug-induced suicide to silence the madness. With gruff, equally psychotic vocals covering the whole song, giving it a very full 90’s thrash/groove vibe, it’s definitely a highlight on the record.

“Grind You Down” finds the band sounding noticeably like Slipknot again with the layered screams over the chorus very reminiscent of Iowa and Slipknot’s self-titled debut album, the far-down-tuned sustained guitar groove, and the high-range clean vocal melody on the post-chorus (which I do quite like) being very similar to that on the bridge of Slipknot’s “No Life”. It’s not so traced over Slipknot’s writing that it’s distracting or ruining though, and it is a pretty enjoyable dirty-groovy song.

“Razorblade Smile” is a straight-up thrash tune that channels the speed and the drunken attitude Kill ‘Em All-era Metallica from start to finish over a bunch of filthy, raunchy, all-over-the-place lyrics about recklessness and a few jabs at Trump, with my favorite lines being “I’m eatin’ pussy by a dumpster / Beard stinking like snatch”. It’s probably the most fun song on the album too if you don’t let the couple of anti-Trump lines get your undies in a twist, and I could definitely imagine it coming straight from the 80’s for how well it plays into the sound. I’m glad the band went for sort of a moment of comic relief near the end like this.

“Eulogy” ends the album a bit strangely, reworking “Bastards” lyrically and musically into a somber, minimalist personal reassurance for Robb sprinkled with small choir hums that eventually burst into a heavier and indeed slightly cathartic climax. Its whispered vocals make it a bit reminiscent of the closing title track on The Burning Red, and a much better mellow moment than “Behind a Mask”.

Catharsis really feels like a natural continuation from Bloodstone & Diamonds, just as that record was a natural elaboration on Unto the Locust, which was a natural continuation of The Blackening, which was the natural progression for the band to undergo after Through the Ashes of Empires. I came into this album ready to defend it from soft-skinned fans who can’t handle Robb’s opinions, and I also came into this album ready to thrash it if it was indeed the stinking shitpile the vocal fans and critics have made it out to be. Fortunately, it’s more of the former. Throughout the album, a little nu metal tinge runs through a gauntlet of tracks, but not so much that it defines the album or distracts from that overwhelming groove metal aesthetic, the symphonic elements, or the anthemic qualities of many of the songs. I don’t understand the labeling of the album as being so hugely nu metal; if down-tuned guitar tuning is enough to damn something as nu metal, then there is a lot more music anti-nu-metal-heads would have to throw out to be consistent. While it does feel like a bit of a stumble after an incredible run with two top quality albums following their well-acknowledged masterpiece, Catharsis’ worst quality is not some supposed revival of nu metal in the band’s sound, or even its lyrical content, or being some “SJW” message. It’s just an album that does a little bit too much recycling of musical ideas within the band’s currently established sound, which shows a that perhaps Machine Head DO need to change it up a bit more next time to keep the music exciting, to keep themselves fresh and inspired. As much as people bitch about The Burning Red and Supercharger, do they really think that if Machine Head just kept plugging in to the Burn My Eyes formula they would still be making better albums today? Would they even be an interesting band today? Would we ever have gotten The Blackening? Perhaps the band need to make another bold move away from a sound that has garnered for them so much praise in order to rejuvenate themselves and make their music interesting again, as some of the best moments on the album, I think, are the ones where they did break away from the slightly symphonic, heavily groovy melodic metal sound they’ve been honing since Unto the Locust. I don’t know where so many people got the idea that this was some preachy, masturbatory, liberal-agenda ego-trip because for the most part it’s just modern Machine Head being modern Machine Head. It uses the same strategy their previous album did, diversity, to stay exciting, and it worked well for them again. The only difference this time is that a little bit of their writer’s block is showing. I flat-out think too many people went into this album not really listening to it, letting their predetermined notions shape their perspective of much of the record, not paying real attention to it, and exaggerating aspects of it that weren’t actually that prominent. Overall, it is not at all a nosedive in Machine Head’s catalog, and I am actually pretty pleasantly surprised at the quality many of the deep cuts on here came through with. Machine Head have not fallen off the tracks. They are still going hard.