Review Summary: YES A MECHINA GUITAR SOLO
A glance at Mechina’s Bandcamp will tell you pretty much everything you need to know. Every year the group releases yet another chapter in their (see: his, Joe Tiberi’s) sprawling sci-fi opus about augmented humans and interplanetary war (citation needed) to the backdrop of Fear Factory-inspired thrash riffs, spacey synths, and vocals of the primal and angelic variety. Mechina drop these sprawling epics, not even counting the rereleases and occasional singles, every year.
EVERY.
YEAR.
This band is procuring an opus as large as Coheed & Cambria’s in half the time. Yet cracks started to show in 2015 with the release of
Acheron, an uneven epic. The music started to stale with 2017’s
As Embers Turn To Dust.Highlights became more and more sparse with every subsequent release. Then in 2024, Mechina didn’t release ****. During the hiatus (technically true given their release schedule up to this point),
Blessings Upon The Field Where Blades Will Flood released as a standalone epic track that showed some serious promise and maturation.
Bellum Interruptum fulfills that promise.
This is the best Mechina has sounded since
Xenon. Not a radical departure from their normal output, but a tremendous refinement. All you’ve come to expect is here; Mel Rose’s angelic voice rising above the fury of deathcore growls and chugging riffs, powerful kick drums, non-existent bass and beautiful piano-lead moments that give listeners a respite and help set moods for each track.
In fact what separates this effort from anything coming before is the mood, for lack of a better word. Listening from start to finish, this feels like the soundtrack to a war where victory and loss carry equal consequence, yet hope prevails. Where recent releases feel aimless and less cohesive, there is an optimism to the instrumentality propelling the narrative and listener forward.
There is also a unifying sound achieved through clean, reverb-heavy guitars and lyrical motifs carried over from previous works including the aforementioned single
Blessings… and
Acheron. The songs themselves also feel connected, telling a story not only lyrically but in how each song flows into the next. “The Plague Pit” brings you into the bowels of the war machine with guttural vocals from Anna Hel. Pulling listeners from the depths, the title track gallops its way to a graceful conclusion leading into a couple of the absolute best tracks Mechina has written, “On the Wings of Vecterra” and “When Honor Meant Something”. It’s no coincidence the song structures of these two tracks are similar; ebbing and flowing between softer, atmospheric sections that build a sense of anticipation to the heavier sections that let loose with some great layered guitar work and driving drums. Mechina have never shied from an anthemic sound, but this time, the anthems come naturally. The soaring guitar solos are earned icing on the cyber metal cake.
Over 10 years and nearly the same number of albums, to say nothing of the singles/eps/remixes, Mechina has been trying to perfect their sound. Bellum Successum.
