Review Summary: Overshadowed.
“Machina Viva” was my first new Wolverine album. I discovered the band sometime around 2012, when “Communication Lost” was already available for more than a year, so this was the first release that I had to wait for. During this recent re-visiting of Wolverine’s discography, this was the second time when I was really surprised. I did not quite remember that their debut LP is such a roller-coaster of everything, and that’s what prompted me to do this series of reviews. The following albums until this one played out mostly as I remembered them, but with “Machina Viva” I had to reconcile my past and present impressions and am still not sure if I succeeded.
I distinctly remembered this album as a competent, but boring and monotonous affair, too mellow and stripped down to basics to inspire. As such, I was ready to do a quick “Guys, this one is a snoozer, move along” review, slap a 3.0 or even a 2.5 score and never come back again. However, the reality proved to be a bit more interesting and challenging. This album is as diverse and as meticulously put together as any previous Wolverine record, and the band has clearly put a lot of effort into it. The one past impression that was confirmed is that the balance between heaviness and atmosphere, perfectly preserved on the two previous records, has clearly shifted in favor of the latter. That, however, does not mean that the riffs are gone for good. Opening track “The Bedlam Overture” starts with some groovy synths in the vein of the title track from the previous album but soon proceeds to showcase the heavier parts. Overall, it is a nice classic Prog Metal epic, my only complaint being that the instrumental parts of it are significantly more interesting than the ones with vocals. As soon as Stefan Zell starts singing, the instrumental section is relegated to the background and focuses on accompanying and supporting the vocals rather than doing anything interesting.
The ambitious and lengthy opener is indeed followed by three mellower songs in a row. But at least two songs out of three are really good. Only “Pile of Ashes” feels like a boring retread of the same melodies we already heard on every other Wolverine album. Otherwise, the semi-title track “Machina” is a classic semi-electronic, semi-acoustic Wolverine song in the vein of “Sleepy Town” but with richer sonic palette, and “Our Last Goodbye” is a slightly chilled version of the ballad “Leaving Yesterday” from the band’s first album.
So, the issue is not that the band has gone soft. In fact, they do try to switch gears for the second half of the album. Unfortunately, this is also the point when the songs start to drag noticeably. “Pledge” opens with a nice pressing riff, but the momentum is killed by some ill-fitting spoken word sections and mellower parts. In fact, there’s nothing going on to justify the song’s almost eight-minute runtime. In my opinion, it would have fared better as a straightforward 4-5 minutes-long rocker. The issue persists, and by the time “Nemesis” rolls out it feels downright excessive and redundant. Luckily. “Sheds” closes off the album appropriately, again returning to solemn electronic soundscapes and bitter-sweet melodies.
If I had to pinpoint exactly what feels off about the album, I’d say that it goes beyond just the songs being too mellow or overlong. Some of the softer songs are actually the strongest on the album, and even the songs that I criticized still have some moments of excellency in them. “Machina Viva” is the sound of a band that hit its ceiling. Faced with the task of following two nearly perfect, fresh, and evenly balanced albums, the band offers us a third, rather diluted iteration of the same sound. At this point, they just didn’t know where else to go. The EP “A Darkened Sun” that followed in 2021 confirmed this impression. The heaviness was there, but the songs themselves weren’t all that memorable or exciting. Going back to “Machina Viva,” I’d say that this album may not be the best starting point for a new listener and the signs of songwriter fatigue are starting to show here, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had if you can go beyond the initial tired and recycled impression.
