Just a year after completing a marathon three-year tour of their album ‘The Blackening’, Californian metallers Machine Head are back with a new album and another UK tour. Last week, the band released their new single ‘Locust’, the first track to be taken from their as-yet-untitled seventh album, which is expected out in September. Following the album’s intended release date, Machine Head will return to the UK for the first time since early 2010, when they were nearing completion of their mammoth ‘The Blackening’ tour. Expectations for their latest offering will undoubtedly be high following the critical and commercial success of its predecessor. Upon its release in 2007, ‘The Blackening’ became widely regarded as one of the best heavy metal albums in a number of years. It earned the band their first-ever Grammy nomination as well as the prize for Best Album at both the Kerrang! and Metal Hammer Awards. The latter magazine went on to award ‘The Blackening’ Album of the Decade last year. It was also the first Machine Head album to enter the Top 20 in the UK since 1999’s ‘The Burning Red’.
After the band’s inception in Oakland, California in 1992 by founding members Rob Flynn and Adam Duce, Machine Head came to worldwide prominence in 1994 upon the release of their debut album ‘Burn My Eyes’. Following the album’s release, the band were credited with pioneering the New Wave of American Heavy Metal alongside fellow ‘90s metallers Pantera, who had recently reached Number One in the Billboard 200 with their album ‘Far Beyond Driven’. Although ‘Burn My Eyes’ initially failed to chart in America, it reached Number 25 in the UK and quickly became Roadrunner Records’ best-selling album – a position it retained for five years until the release of Slipknot’s eponymous debut in 1999. The album’s lyrics centred around various social and political themes and referenced topical issues such as the recent LA riots. The single ‘Davidian’ featured what was arguably one of the most memorable metal riffs of the ‘90s and remains one of Machine Head’s best-loved songs.
The band’s next two albums, 1997’s ‘The More Things Change’ and 1999’s ‘The Burning Red’ both reached the Top 10 in the UK Albums Chart, although the latter was criticised among fans and critics for its new rap-metal direction – a style that had become popular towards the end of that decade. Machine Head started recording ‘The Burning Red’ in 1998 with producer Ross Robinson, who had previously been applauded for his work with Korn, Sepultura and Limp Bizkit. Robinson also spent much of the same period between 1998 and 1999 producing Slipknot’s debut album.
Machine Head returned to their earlier heavy metal sound for 2003’s ‘Through the Ashes of Empires’, but it was 2007’s ‘The Blackening’ that helped them to regain some of the appreciation that they had continued to lose since their debut thirteen years earlier. In 2008, Machine Head were nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance for the album’s first single ‘Aesthetics of Hate’.
After their last visit to the UK early last year, when the band completed their ‘The Blackening’ tour, Machine Head will play four shows in December after the release of their forthcoming album.
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After the band’s inception in Oakland, California in 1992 by founding members Rob Flynn and Adam Duce, Machine Head came to worldwide prominence in 1994 upon the release of their debut album ‘Burn My Eyes’. Following the album’s release, the band were credited with pioneering the New Wave of American Heavy Metal alongside fellow ‘90s metallers Pantera, who had recently reached Number One in the Billboard 200 with their album ‘Far Beyond Driven’. Although ‘Burn My Eyes’ initially failed to chart in America, it reached Number 25 in the UK and quickly became Roadrunner Records’ best-selling album – a position it retained for five years until the release of Slipknot’s eponymous debut in 1999. The album’s lyrics centred around various social and political themes and referenced topical issues such as the recent LA riots. The single ‘Davidian’ featured what was arguably one of the most memorable metal riffs of the ‘90s and remains one of Machine Head’s best-loved songs. 
