DAMN THE MACHINE

The first time that the monicker Damn the Machine came my way was when I was reading a live report at the Greek Metal Hammer from Dream Theater and Damn the Machine were supporting them. The author ended his review about them with the urge to "check them out!". Back then, there was no streaming services nor any of my friends had the album to give it a listen and the band passed out from my memory for many years. Until one day, I don't know how, I had a digital version of the album in my computer, I thought I should give it chance just to see what this was all about and the result was me browsing the discogs platform to get my copy. I finally made it and I have listened to it tens of times and counting and here are my thoughts on this album.

First things first, the band was founded by the well-known guitarist Chris Poland (most known by his tenure in Megadeth which also made me wonder how could a guy with a metal background form a band that could support Dream Theater. Little did I know) and the vocalist/guitarist David Judson Clemmons. The line-up is rounded up by Poland's brother Mark on the drums and David Randi on the bass. The music is mainly heavy, but that's the tip of the iceberg. Surely, it goes in the progressive territory with the numerous time changes, the odd meters and the mind-boggling theme alternations. Many a time I am in awe of the creativity and imagination that permeated the band. This is surely not your every-day metal! The only flaw of the album is that in some songs I am in total bliss, I want to have more and suddenly the song comes to an end. This is quite the opposite when some other, mostly modern, progressive metal bands tend to extend a song beyond its natural life just to prolong it enough to make a track as the prog metal rules dictate since in their mind it is "the longer, the proggier". Anyway, I got over this and now I focus on the A-class songwriting, as I have already mentioned, the warm sound of the guitar, be it distorted, clean or the tastefully placed acoustic guitars, the amazing bass-lines, the intelligent drumming. After all these listens I can't find any flaw. That makes me feel angry with myself since the band went totally unnoticed at the time and they had to disband and I am equally to be blamed along with almost all other metal fans. Then again, it takes some musical background to fully appreciate this music and more than that the band couldn't have much luck at a time when the grunge was at its peak. Whatever the reasons, the band has printed once again the album on vinyl so it's never too late to get the recognition they deserve. I will end my thoughts by using exactly the same words as the editor back in 1993: check them out!

I gave it much thought whether I should dub it as a masterpiece of progressive metal music or as an excellent addition to any prog metal music collection and the only reason that hold me back for the first was the doubts I had was that it didn't make an impact like, say, Operation:Mindcrime" from Queensryche. But, to my ears, it goes by in a flash, I never get bored of it and it doesn't fail to captivate me. So, there you are. After all, the most important is not to miss out on this awesome music, if you are a prog metal fan.

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