Review Summary: Look, we talked about this.
You know, this morning I woke up earlier than usual, excited about that new espresso coffee machine we just got for Christmas, so I crawled to the damn thing, loaded it to the brim and almost choked to death due to the excitement of drinking a burning hot exotic brew from Ethiopia. In that moment, and only for a second, I thought about death, but I didn't accept defeat, so I jumped on the shower after recomposing myself and started to have all kinds of thoughts about this new Mechina album that just dropped. I was convinced, before the coffee tried to kill me, that I'd open this review writing the words "Like clockwork", but to my own surprise, and as I was reading the review for
Venator to achieve some sort of consistency with what I wrote exactly a year ago, I realized that's exactly the way I opened that review last year.
That realization brought even more intrusive thoughts, this time in front of the computer and with a blank word doc waiting to be filled up as I was trying to make sense of this latest chapter of Joe Tiberi's cosmic tale of cyberhuman warfare and cosmic crusaders. Maybe he also has the same kind of flashbacks, these great ideas crossing his mind like a shooting star, just for a moment, only to find out that he already did that on the previous album. Well, whether you like it or not, from the very first minute of the new year, there's a new Mechina album on Bandcamp, and yes, it is everything you expect it to be: Mechina in 2023.
To dispel the most pressing concerns and doubts about this new release, let me spoil you that Dave Holch is not growling anymore and Mel Rose is again, very present. The vocal approach hasn't changed much from the previous two releases. Holch and Mel's voices melt together in a single vocal stream drowned in effects creating the same kind of cybernetic texture you could hear in
Venator. Their melodies are, again, less defined than in some of Mechina's greatest hits like "Cryoshock" or "The Synesthesia Signal". Instead, they sort of hover above the instrumentals, sometimes with more staying power than usual, as is the case of the title track, which is easily the highlight of the album along with first single "The Grand Hunt".
And since I mentioned the instrumentals,
Cenotaph feels much more aggressive at times than its predecessors, something you will immediately notice when that ferocious blast beat that opens the first song, "For All to See", rains on you like a battery of steel. Another of these moments of pure wrath is to be found in "Spasms of Human Tragedy", which may represent the concept behind this chapter of the Mechuniverse, (lore, here we go!): Alithea's acts of revenge for the destruction of Acheron by the forces of the Empyrean Virton.
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Ok, picture this album as the soundtrack for a battle of colossal proportions. We are talking about galactic tsunamis clashing against a barrage of interplanetary fire which at the same time, it creates an astronomical storm that sets the stage for the final showdown between the two protagonists of this album: Alithea and Virton. The Dragonball-like duel they are about to have is brought to life in detail through the rabid instrumental "Broken Matter Manipulation" through one of the most vicious riffs Tiberi has written in a while. With all this grandiosity in mind, it's not surprise Tiberi has opted again for longer songs than usual. With a total of nine tracks where the average run time is six plus minutes, almost every song features a very generous amount of riffage courtesy of
golden-wrist-Tiberi, but also stratospheric keys and furiously mechanical drumming in the most traditional way. This new album sounds like Mechina and it's an absolute blast, but it's also an exhausting format, which combined with the lack of variety in the vocal department, it certainly makes the final product not apt for everyone.
Longtime fans of the band will miss some of the old tricks indeed but all I can say is that, after a lot of coffee, a third shower, and basically imagining Alithea butchering banshees for three hours straight as I hammered this album on repeat,
Cenotaph is just another solid entry in the Mechina catalogue. Considering the pace at which Tiberi, Holch and Mel Rose put out new music, it is commendable they still find a way to stick to the formula while delivering material that is certainly enjoyable (provided you enjoyed it at some point, otherwise, this new album won't change that).
In the future, it would be a treat to see Tiberi and co. recovering some of the older sound and infusing it into the core matter of these latest releases, especially regarding the vocals, alternating the strengths of both singers instead of fusing them into a single entity dominating the whole record. Food for thought I guess, but for now we have new Mechina and a whole year ahead of choking on Ethiopian coffees, intrusive thoughts about Titanborn underwear and armchair sound engineer general banter so, happy new 2023 and happy new Mechina everyone!
