Review Summary: Atmospheric. Emotional. Hypnotic. A remarkable album.
1 of 1 thought this review was well writtenI first stumbled upon
Rise of the Great Machine when I was on the hunt for some ambient, hypnotic music to just relax to, and I’m very glad I did. Starting out in 1994 as a side project of vocalist Jacob Bannon, who was eventually joined by Ryan Parker, Seth Bannon, and guitarist Kurt Ballou, Supermachiner is very, very different from the hardcore punk of his main band Converge. Showing influence from acts such as Bauhaus and Swans,
Rise of the Great Machine is very atmospheric with floating instrumentals built around minimalistic songwriting, featuring soft, melodic singing and also some purely ambient tracks.
I Am Legend is a good example of what the album has to offer. Beginning with a dreamily plucked guitar line, drums, additional guitars and finally vocals join in until the track builds into a glorious climax where distorted singing mixes with ecstatic tremolo picking. Like most tracks on this album,
I Am Legend is built around a single musical idea which is repeated and expanded upon in an almost hypnotic fashion. What is so special about
Rise of the Great Machine, though, is the vibrating sense of timelessness and emotion that is ever present in the songs. Even in their most serene moments, the songs have a certain dark ambience about them. One of my favorite tracks,
The War We'll Never Win, is really expressive despite the calming surface of the song, its dreamlike guitars, interlaced with soft, almost shoegaze-like singing being introduced with chirping crickets . More apparent are these darker undertones in the purely ambient
Vicious Circles, which could easily be used as the soundtrack to some horror game.
The music is also very creative utilizing a variety of instruments which prevents the minimalistic songwriting from getting stale. In
Below You bongo drums, cellos, guitars and somebody tapping on a glass are all used in a percussive manner, and as ethereal howls courtesy of J. Bannon distantly soar among the instrumentals a most chillingly atmospheric soundscape is created. This track is difficult to describe in writing; it is as intriguing as it is intense.
The most intense experience on the album, though, is the bizarre and crushing
Bitter Cold. Being the only truly heavy track it utilizes unsettling Texas Chainsaw Massacre samples, an ominous guitar line and heavily distorted screaming in its climax. Following this track are some of the more jarring moments of the album, from the slightly off key singing in
Fireflies Light the Way to the pure noise of
Remember My Name. The final tracks bring a great sense of closure,
Reign of the Great Machine being really soothing with its electronic ambience softly washing over the listener, and the final track
Last utilizing the harmonic progression of opening track
Rise of the Great Machine to very nicely tie the entire album together in a musical bow. This album should definitely be experienced as a whole.
My only criticisms would be that some tracks start out with great ideas but end before being developed enough, and that
Remember My Name and its “experimental” distorted rumbling just goes on far too long. I also find
Bitter Cold and its female screaming samples to be too uncomfortable to listen to at times. But maybe I'm just a pussy, and in the end,
Rise of the Great Machine is a remarkable record. Creative and emotional, at times bizarre and intense, this album communicates a vibrating sense of timelessness and emotion. If you enjoy acts such as Bauhaus or Swans, post rock, post punk, drone, experimental, ambient or any similar type of music, you should definitely check
Rise of the Great Machine out.
