Bloodstone & Diamonds

The eighth album from Machine Head is a sonic journey into madness and back again. Brain-scrambling themes of death, regret, and dereliction provide emotional punches, but it’s the melodicism (especially on “Now We Die” and “Beneath the Silt”) and inescapable guitar shreds that carry this. “Night of Long Knives” documents the Charlie Manson murders with creepy aplomb, machine-gun drums, and kaleidoscopic guitars. “Killers & Kings” employs face-melting riffs to uphold Robb Flynn’s vocal pulverizing, which he abandons for a beautiful croon on “Damage Inside.” Flynn howls “No gentle mercies here” on the finale, “Take Me Through the Fire.”

It's been three years since Machine Head released Unto the Locust, widely considered the mainstream metal album of 2011.

Turning 20 in metal years is a true milestone, and Machine Head have persevered on their own terms without losing their brutal, albeit mains...

With the smoke cleared and lawsuits settled between MACHINE HEAD and departed co-founder Adam Duce, the band moves forward with new label Nuclear Blast and things are business as usual. That is to say, MACHINE HEAD keeps on seeking their own path in a metal market subdivided and sullied between clic...

The finest mainstream metal album of the year is equal parts force, melody and experimentation, writes <strong>Dom Lawson</strong>