Supercharger

It's fun to shit all over a dreadful metal album every now and then, but only when there's something funny to shit on. Crapping over this would be as entertaining and meaningful as the album itself, which is far too little. The slightly more relevant question here isn't how shitty this is - it's why it's shitty. What could possibly inspire a child of the thrash metal scene to produce this sort of bland, transparent record of the lowest effort. Honestly, truthfully, those riffs that make up the album are all riffs you'd play as soon as you picked up the guitar as a sound test to check the amp level. These are never, ever riffs that you'd keep for a studio grade album. In no universe do you keep those, they're just a fun finger gymnastic to barely get you started.

So to get this cheap psychoanalysis going, it should be speculated Flynn might've felt such emptiness, such flatness and absolute boredom in his life that his artistic output couldn't avoid mirroring that inability to lift off the ground at all. And this has no lift, clearly. For all its gesticulating and unconvincing lures of pseudo anger and wasted energy, it does end up sounding like depression. It's one-dimensional, like Flynn wasn't all there and the two other dimensions were left at home somewhere in a sad old drawer. Some of the choruses are near-excruciating with how indefinite they sound. Like half a chorus idea was written, that was bland to start with, and then they just improvised on the spot and recorded that. How could they have been so rushed into making this ?

Oh, there. I've found what this is. It's a poor man's KoRn, a very poorly crafted (makeshift ?) knock-off of the real thing. On their first few records KoRn had odd and intricate panned guitar noises and arrangements, KoRn had real groove, and they had viciousness and originality; this takes all these things and makes a sleazy cartoon version of it. I said I wouldn't crap on this...but seriously, it lacks personality so greatly it's practically inhuman how mechanical and thoughtless it feels. Did Flynn and gang lose a bet, or were they this out of ideas; just out of phase entirely; and lost musically ? Such a disconnect asks serious questions about the artists' very lives, not just their artistic endeavor as an independent dynamic.

This is the rock bottom point in the movie when Flynn goes to Tibet and meets with the Grand Guru of Life or whatever, on the mountain top, and asks him for guidance. Is this album just playing the same groove/heavy riff over and over again ? Wait, am I going mad here. No seriously, I think it is. Good Lord, I'm sober and this distinctly is starting to feel like a bad trip. If someone gave me this random trivia that "did you know Supercharger was written with just three notes ?", I'd actually think about it for a few seconds. It sounds like the whole album lives in that upper neck area of frets 0 to 5 (and then their higher octaves), exclusively. Hold on, this thing is nearly an hour long - what the hell were they thinking ? Genuine question: who would listen to this past their teenage years ? Am I a teenager ? Wait no I'm not. I really shouldn't be spending too long on this. Bye bye.

Admittedly, there are a few things wrong with Supercharger. The songwriting is a bit sketchy at times, there aren't a lot of good riffs, we don't get any real solos, and the general performance is not ideal. It's also not heavy metal in the sense that the Metal Archives usually deals with, which explains why it's got so much flak. That said, it's not an execrable album in my opinion, nor is it my least favourite Machine Head album. That would be The Burning Red, which just seems so much more boring.

First up: yes, nu metal. One reason this album doesn't work well is because it's stylistically attempting to be a nu metal album, just doesn't play to the genre's strengths. Guitars are tuned down, though not actually with many groovy riffs included, hence why Supercharger fails to strike gold in the "dumb but fun" category. Of course, there's almost a complete absence of solos, barring a micro-moment when 'Nausea' suddenly turns into a smoking section. In itself, the lack of solos isn't problematic, except Machine Head didn't have much else to use as a bridge, often attempting to build tension by repeating several notes and coming gradually out of a palm-mute, which is only useful once or twice. The vocals don't go down too many typical nu metal passages, except for a bit of rapping on a few tracks, which isn't nearly as forced and hamfisted as on The Burning Red. Mostly Robb Flynn switches between clean singing and some grittier semi-cleans, a few roars finding their way in when the intensity demands it. On the whole, Machine Head's fourth album tends more towards melodic material than harsh. God knows what the inspiration was for that ludicrous Tarzan moment on 'American High' though.

Secondly: filler. We don't need this many songs on an album, especially if several of them are half-assed. I don't think I'm being harsh when I say that 'All in Your Head', 'Trephination', and 'Only the Names' could have done with a lot more work, better riffs, and more thoughtful lyrics - or they could just be thrown away altogether. Better a bad short album than a bad long one, right? 'Brown Acid' is fucking pointless as well, just a bunch of effects. Then we have 3 songs that aren't completely worthless, but are very low-grade material that are largely saved by having better lyrics or arrangements than the utter filler. I'm talking about 'Kick You When You're Down', 'Blank Generation', and 'American High'. Perhaps excising the songs mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph would have allowed the band to focus on the rest, salvaging any decent parts where they could, thus keeping the record largely on track.

So, we still have 7 songs that aren't balls, one of which is the intro. I still wouldn't say that any of these are great songs, but at least 'Bulldozer' and 'Supercharger' have a bit of crunchy pace and an okay riff or two, while 'Deafening Silence' is a surprisingly emotional slower song and much stronger than the title track of the previous release. The others are catchy or memorable in some way, especially 'Nausea', which seems to be the most well-developed song on here. Funnily enough, the reason why Supercharger tanked commercially comes from one of its safest bets, the streamlined 'Crashing Around You'. Sure, a video of urban carnage released on September 11th, 2001 could have been seen as offensive, though the song itself pleases in a good-natured, radio-friendly fashion. Unlucky, fellas. On the other hand, 'White Knuckle Blackout!' seems to be the only place where Machine Head really got to grips with nu metal in its essence, nailing the fat crunch of the guitar tone and laying the listener out with a bruising riff, plus getting the swagger of the chorus about right. Nu metal haters are going to hate this, but as a fan of Korn at the time, this was my instant favourite track and remains unskippable if I listen to the album.

For all the errors of judgement and execution, Machine Head are slightly rescued by a definite sense of fun that pervades Supercharger. This sense of fun doesn't exactly save the album from being awkward at times, but it stops it becoming the same bland beige that The Burning Red was. I mean - bad as this album sounds - I can still listen to it from start to finish and I probably will sing most of the lyrics and I might crack a smile or two. It's a stupid but bearable pal, basically. Criticize it musically and I won't argue, though Supercharger's flirtation with nu metal doesn't cause its downfall. Nu metal can be played well and sound energetic and anthemic: I would point out Korn's Take a Look in the Mirror as one of the better examples of the genre done with big balls and good songwriting. By comparison, this doesn't even play to the strengths of the genre by making the riffs big and fuzzy or tapping into some creepy vocal atmospherics. We get quite a different beast, which I believe was not nearly as trendy as many people say.

There's about a minute in the first proper song here, "Bulldozer", after the pointless and uninteresting "Declaration" intro has ended, where Machine Head breaks into what sounds like it could have been a half-tolerable thrash/hardcore riff section, and I'd love to say that it almost fooled me into thinking I might be in for a sea change from the two miserable full-length albums previous. But I gotta level with ya, I don't fucking trust this band at ALL to write anything of quality, so sure enough, within seconds, that same song unraveled into an unkempt amalgamation of Korn, Rage Against the Machine, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and God Hates Us All era Slayer that reassures me that Supercharger is in no danger of breaking the stink-streak that preceded it.

I could say a couple positive things about the production. The way the guitars and vocals here are produced is a little bit more edgy and cutting than the last album, and Robb is settling into his multiple vocal stylings a little more with each album. Unfortunately, all of those stylings are really lame even by 2001 standards. His rapping has gotten a little more dextrous and sounds like an actual attempt at rap, perhaps, but then it's all about laying on the angst and the nu-metal rage, once again a mid-90s Jonathan Davis with far less personality, or a try-hard Mike Patton, and both the lyrical content and delivery feel shallow. What's worse, he's obviously going for those cliche radio rock chorus tones and patterns that feel like he's trying to get Machine Head recruited for an 'Army of One' ad on TV, like they're trying to peddle themselves as my friendly local neighborhood Godsmack, a band that I must apologize for my neck of the woods (Southern NH/Northern MA) ever producing to plague your ears. But, be real, it's not as if Flynn's goofiness is any better.

The annoying vocals would be one thing, but the vast majority of riffs here are just pathetic, yet again bouncing back and forth between a couple chords that require no imagination whatsoever, just to cling to the grooves that the fat bass tone is laying out, which sound good studio-wise, but are really just as awful once you dissect them. I'd say Supercharger is slightly more technical and dynamic than The Burning Red; you will come across a couple riffs that have a genuine energy flowing to them, and they use a lot more guitar effects like wah-wah sounds all over the place to make this sound like much more of an organized mess, but any attempt at validity is ruined by the shitty commercial radio vocals and the obnoxious pandering that this album constantly gets into. This is 'metal' by numbers, the lowest common denominator kind, trying to cash in on the audiences of emotional rock and angry wallet-chain Lollapaloser mosh. Any time any rhythmic maneuver comes close to engaging my brain, it's almost instantly shat upon by a quick morph into the tedium that I've described above.

It's very clear that Machine Head were trying to follow the Korn trajectory around the turn of the century, with a lot more soft atmospheric parts contrasting against bleaker emotional outbursts, and Robb was also trying to get a decisive, pointed delivery to his chorus parts that David of Disturbed always had ("Only the Names" is a textbook example of all this). But that's the problem, we already had those bands, and this one did absolutely nothing as well as any of them. Not that I'm asking you to listen to them instead, I could probably count the number of metal albums I enjoy on a single hand with a missing thumb, but this is just more also-ran rubbish that time will swallow up, even the fans of Machine Head's earlier output don't seem so enamored with this one, and it doesn't take a degree to understand why.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

1999's The Burning Red was a money-driven aping of the nu/rap metal craze which has been critically panned here and elsewhere, yet in recent years it has garnered somewhat of a 'cult' following so to speak. The 2001 Johnny K-produced follow up Supercharger on the other hand has not, which is mystifying since It clearly was nu metal being done less ineptly.

Whereas The Burning Red took all the worst elements of nu metal (watered down Pantera aesthetic, a complete disregard for melodies, homogeneous grunge riffing), this takes some of the genre's better traits, such as sing a long hard rock ballads ("Crashing Around You", "Deafening Silence") and danceable, somewhat unpredictable groove-oriented jams ("Kick You When Your Down", Ten Fold", "Nausea").

The aforementioned "Deafening Silence" in fact has an emotional weight to it that one might not associate with bands from this particular style of music. There are also other sad and atmospheric slow-burner songs, such as "Only the Names" and "Blank Generation", although aesthetically they have too much in common with Tool to be considered straight up ballad type songs.

Lyrically, many have argued that this is even worse than The Burning Red, due to having a more juvenile slant. While this might be true to some extent, I will still always find songs like "American High" (which details Robb Flynn's chaotic teen years) far more interesting than the nonsensical tough guy ranting of "Devil with the King's Card" and so on.

Clearly this was not created to please thrash fans. Many rightfully so even see it as Machine Head spitting right in their faces. But still, if you enjoy groove-focused nu metal with a melodic hard rock influence — ie Mudvayne, No One, Nothingface, Skrape and Ünloco — then this can still be an enjoyable listen, no matter what detractors of the style might say.

I am not really a fan of Robb Flynn's Machine Head band. Even from the very instant that I heard their groove-laden thrash metal debut, I already knew that these guys don't have anything unique to offer to the metal scene. And I'm not just saying this because I don't like that musical class. Frankly speaking, I myself have numerous favorites who play in the genre. It is just unfortunate that Machine Head did not have that potential to make it to my list.

After hearing two disappointing studio albums from their group, I had come to a conclusion that their later releases are equally that mediocre. I never really thought that Machine Head's generic groovy metal could get worse, and then I heard their third studio album which paraded their shifting from groove-thrash to a more nu-metal tainted sound. And like the possible reaction of fellow metalheads when they first heard the release, I was in a point where I couldn't care less about them anymore. However, I accidentally bumped into their fourth offering "Supercharger", as it was playing on a stereo when I was in a record store scanning over some good music materials. Man, "Supercharger" is utterly worse!

This fourth offering is mostly composed of awfully bad riffs, recycled from "The Burning Red", deteriorated down predominantly on one to two guitar chords without any accommodation of authentic solos. In the majority of the album, the presence of the bass is not even noticeable. The bass was tuned flat down and it plays no role in the album, as it only follows and plays as a shadow to the guitar most of the time. This issue is identical with the drum section too. Dave's drumming performance here is in beyond belief simplistic and it suffers a great lack of punch. Like how the bass was done in this offering, the drums only trailed behind the groovy riffs and it did not display any surface of rage or technical nature. And finally Rob's despicable vocal performance summed up the album's appallingly inferior value.

You would have expected that Machine Head had learned from "The Burning Red", yet by some means they dug deeper into nu-metal's even more mushy department. On a whole, this record is an abhorrent album on the band's already dreadful résumé. This is what happens when a band is more focused about the fame and money, instead of creating good and compelling music for their passion. Eventually they learned after this album and they went back on doing lackluster post-thrash metal, rather than fabricating a cliché of nu-metal garbage.

It seems that Robb and his buddies decided to ride the nu metal gravy train until it crashed. This album is the second of Machine Head's unfortunate mulligans and it emerged out of the septic swamps of the metal landscape in the early 00's. Supercharger is an unfortunate product of it's time and woefully dated. It's cliched to hell and painful to listen to. It seems as though they're trying to mimic the sound of nu metal just to sell records and gave absolutely no fucks about the content of this album. If you thought The Burning Red was cliche and stupid, you ain't seen nothing yet.

The overall sound of the album is disjointed and aborted. The simple riffs of The Burning Red are dumbed down even more to the point where you can hardly recognize the rhythm. The tuning is flat and the lead guitar and bass are indistinguishable and put much lower in the mix than Robb's atrocious vocals. Even lower, is the drums. McClain's drumming is unbelievably simple, light and lacks any crack or punch and gets lost in-between the guitars. Robb's vocals; finally, are the worst part of the album with off-kilter rapping with little flow or content, whining and shrill singing that stings your ears like nails on a chalkboard and at times sounds like crying, nu metal distortion effects and whispering that just screams "CLICHE!", castrated, nonsensical yelling that often comes out of nowhere and often doesn't follow any rhythm. It seems instrument-wise that they were trying to make an album so full of nu metal's flaws and cliches that it would create some singularity that would destroy their own genre. It sounds like a bad joke, like a deranged conspiracy. Unfortunately, it's not. This album was serious and it had nothing to hide.

The songs themselves suffer from structural problems. Most of the titles are stupid taglines and pop hooks with lyrics that revolve around either tough-guy posturing, teenage complaining, and emo-ish whining. Come on Robb! I know you can write smarter lyrics than this watered down shit! The tag lines are annoying and just thinking about them leaves me feeling embarrassed. The songs are structured in one-riff or two-riff patterns that leave the songs feeling either flat and boring or disjointed and impossible to follow. The few songs that do have any dynamics are usually the ballads which feature the unbearable whine vocals. The worst offenders with this insufferable squeal are "Crashing Around You," which is possibly the worst Machine Head song ever made; "Nausea," and "Only The Names." "American High" even has this stupid George Of The Jungle yell at the start of it that only manages to reinforce it's idiotic lyrical content about Robb being a dick in high school. "Bulldozer," "Kick You When You're Down," and "White-Knuckle Blackout" are just tough-guy posing with a lot of slathered yelling with some soft vocals just to break things up. The rest of the songs aren't even worth mentioning. The one listenable song, "Deafening Silence" actually manages to build up emotion and atmosphere for the first three fourths of the song before crashing into an oh-so-emo climax of crying vocals and whiny rasps. This pisses me off even more since they had ONE good song going for them only to fuck it up at the ending! These songs are thoroughly forgettable, terrible, bland, and annoying.

All and all, Supercharger is anything but super. The incessant annoyances and boring cliches drag this album down to new lows which Have yet to ever be touched again and hopefully never will be. All I can say is, thank god that they ditched the nu metal sound after this abortion of an abominable turd-stain of an album! This was one of the worst metal releases I have had the displeasure of ever hearing! This was also from one of my favorite bands too, so that only pours salt into the wound. The only way I could possibly recommend this abomination to anyone is if they are an incessant, die-hard, fan of Machine Head just looking to complete their discography, but even then I'd say to pretend Supercharger never existed. It'll save you a lot of torment to just ignore this one.

We've seen this before. Every band has it. That particular album that pretty much FAILS its task. In this particular case, the task wasn't that hard. A return to Machine Head's old glorious groove thrash style at this point wouldn't be impossible, given that this is right at the beginning of the (later dubbed) New Wave of American Heavy Metal, in which the one-riff-groove mantra of the nü-metal era was dropped in favour of harder sonorities. Yet somehow they thought that it would be a good idea to dig even further into nü-metal territory with even softer riffs and vocals. This album can be only rated as a disaster.

Machine Head's 2001 offer picks up where its predecessor (1999's The Burning Red) started. Problem is that album wasn't anything brilliant to start with, especially given that it was significantly worse than both albums that had preceded it. However, Supercharger ends up by falling in a new abyss. Digging further into the realms of mainstream metal and hard rock, it features arguably the worst set of tunes this Oakland band has ever written.

The chunky riffs (as usual, one per song) continue here, starting right at the beginning of "Bulldozer". The main difference between this and The Burning Red, though, is that they become perpetual elements. Worsening the situation, Ahrue Luster does not really do anything to "move" the songs forward, resulting in an annoying perpetual groove (e.g. "Trephination"). There is some melody, though. The problem is that it is only nicely used once (the song "Crashing Around You", one of the few decent songs off this album), and then we've got songs like "American High". It's just vaguely decent, with some fail in the middle.

The drums aren't much better. Sure, McClain comes up with some decent drumming here and there ("Crashing Around You", "Supercharger"), but most of it is in near-complete lacking of a technical side and instead follows the groove-chug way, and this came from the band that wrote the song "The Rage to Overcome".

Robb Flynn's vocals achieved their lowest ever point here. While he manages to sound angry and aggressive in some of the songs, while combining his melodic vocals he sounds like a forced clone of Jonathan Davis in others. This is especially seen in "Supercharger" where he uses the cry-and-whisper technique...in a song whose lyrical themes (guitar material, apparently) do not justify such a thing. However, he manages to sound even worse in "American High", which is pretty much the WORST song Machine Head have ever made. Remember "Silver (Take My Hands)" from The Burning Red? Well, this is even worse. This song sounds like it has been written for a teen soap opera, plus its lyrics (rock'n'roll, rebellion, abuse, etc.) represent everything that is wrong with this album.

Final verdict: with some work this album could have been better. There are some decent tracks here, and with better attention to the instrumentation (more technical drumming, better riffing, etc.) this could have been a decent record. However, this Machine clearly lost its Head here. I only recommend this album if you're a big fan of Machine Head and you already own most of their material. Otherwise stay away, or see if you can buy the "Crashing Around You" single, because that's the best you'll ever get from this album.

There’s a lot on here that will leave a very bitter taste in the mouth of most heavy metal fans. The rapped vocals, the hip hop beats, the “fuck you, muthafucka!” attitude. This is without doubt Machine Head playing nu ‘metal’, a far cry from the hardcore-meets-Slayer style of their debut, now they worship at the altar of Korn.

But genre isn’t the same as quality, is it? Whatever genre it is, it still has the potential to be a success. Unfortunately, in this case it isn’t. Supercharger has it’s enjoyable moments: Bulldozer and Trephination are songs that hint at the aggression Machine Head are best at, even if they don’t truly fulfil that promise, and White-Knuckle Blackout and Crashing Around You are good enough to nod along to.

But those aside, there’s a lot of rubbish to come. American High is just plain annoying, the longer songs like Blank Generation and Only the Names fail to hold interest, and as a whole the album loses steam half way through when the formula grows stale and predictable. I’m also puzzled as to why “Hole in the Sky” is on here. Maybe they felt they had to make up for the new style with something by metal gods Black Sabbath? Whatever the reasoning, it doesn’t work. It’s mis-matched within the album and loses the charm of the original.

One thing worth noting that it’s a change to hear nu ‘metal’ with actual metal content. Most such bands come from non-metal backgrounds, and although there’s a lot of that on Supercharger, it’s also an example of a band with genuine metal influences playing in this style.

But still, if you are repulsed by all things nu, then stay well away. The hardcore hip hop aggressive bounce, the post-grunge textures, the angst-ridden lyrics, it’s all here, albeit with some mild (groove) metal sound too. Personally, I’ve heard worse albums, but it’s still a flimsy offering from a band that can do better. All told, it becomes apparent by the end that Machine Head are much better roaring their anger than whining about their abusive childhoods.

Machine Head pretty well solidified their status as a principled adherent to the fine art of trend hopping in the previous 9 years. Be all this as it may, 2001 brought in a rather interesting revelation to those who’ve bothered to follow them, and that is that they aren’t really very good at it. “Supercharger” shows the band actually sticking to their nu-metal guns, in spite of the fact that it did not serve them well among their groove fans, in that it largely failed to rope in a sizable contingent of Durst worshippers. One could perhaps chalk it up to even the consumers of the most decrepit bowel movements of pop culture being able to smell a generic imitator of their preferred cuisine and take the necessary evasive actions.

This essentially takes the hokier elements of “The Burning Red” and attempts to mask them with a more complex arrangement and a few bits and pieces of their earlier groove sound, all of which succeed only in turning an offensively banal style of music into a monotonously drawn out, overlong version of itself. Some of these songs literally seem like they're 10 minutes long, in no small part due to the prevalent use of tedious quiet sections with wussy whisper vocals and other assorted nonsensical vocal gesticulations. There are actually sections on “Kick You When You’re Down” and “Blank Generation” where Flynn engages in the mallcore version of scat singing, consisting of douche bag ridden imitations of cymbal and guitar scratch noises.

In spite of all the goofy, Durst inspired rap vocals and gimp squeals, the really culprit that makes this pile of dung beetle munchies unbearable is all the sloppy, effects drenched half-thoughts going on behind them. Sometimes there’ll be overlong, heavily repetitive drones that leave Flynn’s voice way too exposed in “Blank Generation”. At others, there will be overloud bass parts that are tuned down to the point of sheer sonic diarrhea in “Trephination”. Occasionally a whole song of rubbish isn’t even bothered with, such as the grating, 59 second mess of guitar noise that is “Brown Acid”. Surprisingly enough, directionless meandering like this actually holds equal footing with all the usual collections of dry, dumb assed 2 note chug grooves that pretend to be exercises in heaviness.

Like with all purveyances of faux metal, “Supercharger” is not without a few really poor attempts at window dressing. The first and most painfully obvious is the opening riff of “Bulldozer”, which sounds like a slowed down and tuned down version of “Painkiller”, but is surrounded with Flynn’s ad lib gibberish and Phil Anselmo influenced crapshoots. It naturally repeats itself into ad nauseam territory quickly and is changed out for the usual mishmash of queefy quiet sections and open note groove dregs. The next example is a really slow, stripped down, and nearly self-plagiarized rehash of the opening riff to “Davidian” to kick off the heavy section of “Only The Names”, which is surrounded by grungy ballad sections aplenty. There’s also a token guitar solo here and there, held out like a carrot on a fishing rod to Machine Head’s rabbit fans, which they naturally can’t get to since the tyranny of Flynn commands mediocrity and commercial pandering.

Although “The Burning Red” will stand as Machine Head’s worst abomination of a studio album for all time, this holds a near equal place in the annals of nu-metal failure. It is less of a reprehensible fit of auditory torture and more of an annoying pest of an album that can’t be successfully swatted, but the general effect upon the listener is the same. After this Flynn finally buckled under the pressure and left the wastelands for slightly less dead pastures, to the delight of this band’s fan base and the continued indifference of the culture zombies that they were trying to reach from 1999-2001. If nothing else, it teaches us that if the primary focus of music is to maintain a regular presence on MTV, the result is never pretty.

Supercharger is evidence to the stubbornness that is Machine Head. Despite poor initial reactions to the nu metal style Machine Head converted to on their previous album, The Burning Red, Machine Head even head further into the nu metal genre on this release. So the people that have “numetalphobia” need not even try to listen to Supercharger but simply skip the album and move on.

The album itself feels as though the band is drowning too. The writing isn’t very cohesive and despite a few songs that try to redeem the album as a whole – it just isn’t enough to right this sinking ship. The performances of each member are watered down and even though the album doesn’t necessarily have “bad” performances, they do feel as though they aren’t heartfelt and the band wasn’t playing for themselves anymore.

The guitar work is what really throws me for a loop. The guitars are down-tuned to the point that any technicality is lost in the distortion of the sound. Most of the guitars are also pretty simplistic material. There is nothing more relevant than some simple riffing and then some slower melodic lines. Solos are almost completely extinct on Supercharger (even though Rob Flynn is quite a guitar player). The guitars have some emotion in the melodic parts but overall it’s a pretty dull, stop-and-go, nu metal kind of riffing. Not all that special.

The drum and bass work is what really holds this album together. The bass is heavily prominent on the album as is the drum work. Both have also taken an intelligence drop and been simplified to the point that it’s really not even funny. The bass is catchy and that helps in the overall structure of the music so that it doesn’t get too boring as the album continues on. The drums are decent but again – pretty simple stuff here.

Rob Flynn was one of the best post-thrash vocalists (and now after Supercharger is once again) that I have heard. He was harsh without being death metal but he wasn’t as high in sound to be a great thrash vocalist. All of that is gone. No post-thrash vocals here. He does a more understandable vocal style that is very much in the vein of nu metal. He does some of his really bad rapping on this album once again (I was hoping that would die – but evil never stops).

Lyrically, the album isn’t as tight as previous efforts but it is decent. Some of the lyrics are clever and Rob Flynn has always been a superior lyric writer. Although some of the songs themselves have strange lyrics (American High) other songs are saved from being nu metal fodder by their lyrics (Crashing Around You). So there is a huge variation in the quality of lyrics but overall it’s probably the best part of the album.

Supercharger is full of nu metal clichés. I feel bad for Machine Head for heading down this road and eventually having to reclaim their legitimacy after the release of this album. There are some tracks that are worth at least one listen but overall I wouldn’t say this album is a “must listen” even to die hard fans.

Songs to check out: Crashing Around You, Trephination, Supercharger.

This album is total and utter mallcore. The typical pattern of "let's drop out the guitars and accentuate the vocals" is there in pretty much every song. There are no riffs, just random "melodic" fills under the choruses that alternate with just-about-rapped verses. Every once in a while there is an almost decent middle section, but by almost decent I mean not even as good as the first Machine Head album, which was at least solid half-thrash.

Okay, yeah there are a few thrash riffs here and there, but a thrash album this does not make... for example the song "Bulldozer" starts off with a thrash riff, but then turns into halfthrash immediately in, and then ... well, there goes the riff to be replaced by random noises, and here come the verses!! Then more random noises, the occasional "groove" moment with the half-as-fast halfthrash riff.

As for the occasional "ballad goes heavy" - well, most every song is like that. You have the 'soft' verses, and the distorted chorus. Really, if you've heard Korn, or Deftones, or whatever is the rage today in mallcore, then you've heard this. You've got the whiney vocals, the distorted vocals, the simple percussive guitar patterns, everything is here... it really reminds me most of old Coal Chamber, but okay since I'm familiar with like five mallcore bands, that's probably not the most accurate comparison. Note that I can't say that it reminds me of any metal bands... well, maybe some older Machine Head, but even that is not there.

Oh and one more thing... "I AM THRASH, AND I AM NOT HERE". There are some faster songs, and more thrash riffs than on the previous album, but in order to be considered a thrash album you need to have more than the OCCASIONAL thrash riff here and there. If most of the songs are in the mallcore style, then this will be declared a mallcore album. Just the presence of stupid pseudo-industrial noises, lots of heavy breathing, total mallcore-styled vocals, and other stupid bullshit to fill in the space between the approximately two minutes of total riffs that are on this album...

This isn't even a half-thrash album like the first Machine Head album. This is, as I mentioned before... utter and complete mallcore. Want proof? Go to their website, download the songs - at least they're cool enough to have some songs available to warn people off.