Machine Head - The Blackening

The latest offering from Machine Head weighs in at a meaty sixty minutes long, but there are slim pickings to be had from its eight identikit tracks. Opener, Clenching the Fists of Dissent, offers a false hope with a sound finger-picked intro but slides effortlessly into the all too familiar Machine Head riff and vocal package that the album rarely strays far from. Aside from the recycled myriad of tired guitar parts, there are some patent cut-and-paste ideas from recent bands like Killswitch Engage and Avenged Sevenfold, not least on the nine minute dirge, Halo. As jarring as these moments are, dedicated Machine Head followers will probably be quite content with the result which plays safe with the content while shaking up the structure here and there. But innovative, this ain't. [Jamie Borthwick]