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Mechina
Blessings Upon The Field Where Blades Will Flood
Release Date: 09/09/2023 |
Tracklist
Review Summary: A career retrospective crammed into eighteen minutes. You can pretty much set your calendar to Mechina releases. On the first day of just about every year, you can be fairly sure you’ll be nursing that hangover while listening to the latest Mechina album. While that cycle is great for predictability, it hasn’t been so great for providing a diverse array of albums. The last three or four albums have seen a lot of Mechina’s more extreme elements dismissed in favor of an atmospheric, female vocalist-driven, homogeneous sound – a sound that is still excellent in small doses, but that can make entire albums exhausting. That is why “Blessings Upon the Field Where Blades Will Flood” is such a surprise. First, it came out of nowhere, and second, it is easily the most diverse and extreme work they’ve done since As Embers Turn to Dust. In addition to being quite the mouthful of a title, it is also one eighteen-minute song that acts almost as a career retrospective.
After nearly two minutes of ambience, this song (which I won’t bother naming anymore) hits with the industrial metal dominated riffs that have been missing (or at least buried in the mix) for quite some time, as well as the rapid-fire double bass accompaniment. As if that wasn’t surprising enough, the death metal vocals also make a re-appearance after a long absence, which helps to provide a much-needed contrast to the female vocals. Throughout its eighteen-minute runtime, this song touches on just about everything that has made Mechina a compelling listen. There’s the industrial riffs, electronics, ambient melodies, female vocals, death growls – and as it progresses there are guitar-dominated portions, mellow ambient parts, strong keyboard melodies, and a subtle bed of ongoing electronics. In fact, despite its length, it easily feels less monotonous than just about any song from the last few releases. I can only hope that this song, and the return of some long-missed musical elements, is a sign of things to come and not a one-off.
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Album Rating: 4.0
https://mechinamusic.bandcamp.com/track/blessings-upon-the-field-where-blades-will-flood
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Do we know if this is a lead single or just a single a la "To Coexist" or "The World We Lost"?
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
We don't. The only thing on the album page is the song lyrics.
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This is a step in the right direction. My favorite era of Mechina was when they were doing those long stand-alone singles
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
Omg this song is so damn goood
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They’re back!
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Hopefully it's not a temporary return.
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Funny that the most palatable and digestible thing they've done in years is an 18 minute track. Thanks for reviewing this Willie!
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Dang, this is pretty good.
"It easily feels less monotonous than just about any song from the last few releases." Spot on. This is one of those bands I've always put on and dug the spacey mechanical theme, alien sounding vocals, and production, but just get so quickly burnt out on their sound within a few songs.
This feels like a much more compelling song with better songwriting than I ever remember them having on their last few or more records
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Blessings Upon the Field of Tyranny
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Honestly, after a few listens, and apart from the harsh voices being back, the rest is pretty much on par with Cenotaph, I don't know why everyone is digging this track like it was radically different from their last 3 albums.
Production is fairly better though.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
I'm just vibing with it more tbh without making a direct comparison to previous efforts. Maybe 18 minutes is a more palatable experience for me and their sound (:
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Finally, this band back on the track again.
adding growl/scream while there's a part of clean voice on it just balance as right for the band.
could be Progenitor 2.0.?
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Solid song, but I would also like to hear the clean male vocals again too. I wish they would change it up more like on Progenitor and As Embers Turn to Dust. Some songs had growls and clean male vocals, some just had female vocals, and others has a combination of both. Those were the strongest albums imo.
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
--Honestly, after a few listens, and apart from the harsh voices being back, the rest is pretty much on par with Cenotaph, I don't know why everyone is digging this track like it was radically different from their last 3 albums.--
The harsh voices are back. The guitars are mixed higher, and they're more Fear Factory-ish and less start/stop chuggy. Also, the vocal and keyboard melodies feel less repetitious and more fleshed out.
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agreed Darkwatch. I really got tired of the one-note Venator formula, they might as well just use all the tools in their tool box
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
The last couple albums just plod and plod, it feels like theres barely any movement in the songs, this though has a clear direction where it's going at any given time
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