MACHINE MEN – “Scars & Wounds”
(Dynamic Arts Records)
Running Time : 45:13 (about 8 minutes of silence)


Well I was preparing myself for some boring hardcore band and this ain the hardcore that i like if u know what i mean, so I was ready to get my shovel and start shoveling shit at this release. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Yet another band from Scandinavia twas, Finland that is. The land of the thousand lakes. Well they should add of a couple of thousand bands as well. This is the debut by our Finnish friends after a mini CD that was warmly received. They play a modernized version of traditional heavy metal. Think something like "The Chemical Wedding" era Bruce Dickinson. Now know this, their singer Antony must be a distant cousin of Bruce Dickinson, because he sounds almost identical to him. Perhaps a little amateurish, but hey take a SAMSON release and Bruce, doesn’t sound as he did on “Powerslave”. Well, think "The Chemical Wedding" and think IRON MAIDEN. Those are their influences. But what about the songs ? Well, they are not half s bad. But still they wont make Steve Harris, start to turn in his bed at night. They show a flare of promise and if they work on it, they can become big. They need not rush things. The good thing about them is that they are not your typical candy-ass 4/4 happy eunuch metal band that you would expect to see hailing from Scandinavia. Their guitars are sharp both in riffola and solos and their melodies are good. It’s pretty short at about 36 minutes. But hey it’s quality over quantity.
The production is pretty good too. No “plastic”, shit here. It has an organic feel to it, and if they manage to make the guitars a bit more cutting edge, it will be really bad-ass.
Well at the back of my head there’s a question formulating ? Drones, clones or a really kick ass band ? And you know what ? I have no idea. What I know for sure is that songs like “Against the freaks”, "Silver Dreams" and the title track "Scars & Wounds" are really good, and the rest of the album is pretty good too. If you ‘re into MAIDEN/DICKINSON, give them a chance. They deserve it.
4,5/6
Dimitrios “Rockavlon” Fatouros