Is There Anybody Out There?

I don't understand this band. Why would they think going back to playing nu-metal would be a good move? This is an epic failure of massive proportions.

Rob Flynn shouting "Is There Anybody Out There?" is supposedly the "hook" of this song. He shouts it roughly 15-20 times throughout it. Let's talk about this guy's voice. First off, he's mostly rapping. Well, he's rapping during all of the verses anyways. The band goes back and forth between playing a nu-metalish riff and then cutting out so we get to hear Flynn's horrible rapping and juvenile lyrics isolated by themselves. Machine Head had been garnering a small amount of respect in the metal community for their previous works, but this is just a gigantic leap in the wrong direction. Flynn's rapping has this sort of tough guy attitude about it, yet he's crying for help at the same time, pleading for someone to step in and save him. Right. As if his life is really so bad that he has to turn back to his teenaged, angst ridden attitude of the past. It's just a cry for attention. As for his singing abilities, well, he can't really sing. His tone and method of delivery is bad. His use of vocal fry is also bad. His harmonies are weak. Overall, he just doesn't have a good metal voice. Though I personally wouldn't enjoy listening to him sing in ANY genre, he would be much better suited for emo or metalcore, rather than metal. Unfortunately his vocal influences are poorly grounded, and he ought to rebuild his whole voice from the ground up, this time using better sources of inspiration.

Before the awful chorus is the prechorus, where the band sounds full out 'core. This is where we get those sad sounding, emotional clean vocals, which sound wimpy as hell. The instrumentation is minimal, and the drums are as bare boned as possible. They did add a string section to their chorus, but it really sounds bad. The guitars sound heavy but it's not the good kind of heavy. It's more that chugga chugga type of stuff which aside from the heaviness doesn't actually share much in common with the musical aspects of the metal riff. The riff as it's written isn't that bad, but the tone used and the way it is mastered just comes out sounding like this overly processed, computerized crap that has no place in rock and roll. There aren't any guitar solos either.

That about sums it up. This band just plain sucks, and this song is embarrassing. I wouldn't be caught dead listening to this kind of garbage.

Now, I'm no avid fan of Machine Head, so my opinion probably doesn't correspond to those of true MH fans, but from what I can tell so far, this song is not well liked. Most of the problems I have with this are personal problems, an issue with the song that just irks me.

First, this style of music does not suit them. Trying to play a four-minute nu metal song is well and all, but it sounds like a combination of Slipknot and Skillet, two VERY different rock band. And THAT'S just the chorus, the part that I like the most due to it's annoying, yet likeable catchiness. The true sound of Machine Head, to me, is the six to ten minute groove/thrash mastery found on Unto The Locust and Bloodstone & Diamonds. Not some cheesy mallcore-sounding crap you'd hear blaring out of some emo rockstar wannabe's headphones, as can be heard here.

The next problem is the lack of guitar in the verses when Flynn sings. Not that it would have made it much better, mind you. The lyrics in these verses sound like they're trying to appeal to the fanbase of bands such as Korn, Killswitch Engage or the infamous Slipknot, and have probably done very well in that aspect. Not all is lost, however, as the drumming is still done well here, albeit rather blandly. All in all, the guitars are excellent, the drumming is passable, the chorus is catchy and the vocals are as great as ever, showing a wide range of what Flynn is capable of. Unfortunately, these are mashed into one song with one majorly glaring problem: The awful songwriting.

The elephant in the room is the song is composed terribly, and whilst the song is meant to show Phil's little racist incident, that doesn't excuse the fact that it's like this, as they have done so much better in the past, highlight songs being This Is The End (Unto The Locust), Halo (The Blackening) and Game Over (Bloodstone & Diamonds).

So, we conclude that this song is great for the genre it's composed in, but it's just a waste of talent compared to what MH can really do. And if it's a bad review, I apologize, as it is my first review on the site.

My problems with this song are purely musical, Phil Anselmo's racist and idiotic actions from earlier this year are fully worthy of condemnation. but if you're going to do that, at least provide a decent song.

Much of this song has Robb spitting out verses in the style of Mike Shinoda, and that makes his vocal approach seem awkward and forced. He even cry-sings in parts and that just ruins it for me, I thought that you left that behind with Supercharger! (Machine Head's worst album) There is also only one real riff that makes its way into the song and the overall structure is simple verse-chorus with a buildup to a soft part and then going back to the verse-chorus. The guitar assault stops to make way for forced semi-rapped vocals and a nu-metallish childhood story. This song is just not constructed well.

Gone is the grandiosity of the past 3 albums and instead the lead single treats us to a much more simplified and less able Machine Head. This does not have me hopeful for the future album's release. He seems to be taking this band back to the Supercharger days and that is something nobody wanted to hear, as someone who loved the past four Machine Head albums for their grandiosity and complexity, this is a massive step backwards. Please Robb, this is not worth it, take a step back, calm down, and think about what you are doing, this is not good for any of us.

Cheesy, angsty and utter shit. I could probably end the review here, but for the sake of filling it out a little, I won't. This is shocking. I never really cared for Machine Head, and only briefly skimmed through their material. Some of it was okay'ish, but nothing too interesting. This, however, is interesting, or should I say fascinating, because of how horrible it is.

This is mallcore crap. It sounds like Robb Flynn morphed into a 16 year old boy who just experienced his first break-up. Watered-down chugging, annoying little guitar squeals, cringe-worthy lyrics, yep, "Is There Anybody Out There?" has got it all. Though, there's nothing remotely memorable or catchy about this track. Some of the emo-tinged nu-metal has got at least a little catchy moment, be it a decent solo or catchy melodies, but none of those are found here.

"Is There Anybody Out There?" sounds like a metal cover of a song by The Smiths, that is just terribly executed. The weird "whistling" in the beginning of the song and before the final "hooray", sounds like the whistling heard in the movie '500 Days of Summer', which makes the whole The Smiths thing even more legit.

After a few listens, it's still difficult to remember anything. This song leaves a bad taste of shit in your mouth, but you can't really remember why. It is that bad. Bands release songs that could be considered fillers all the time, and it's rare to find an album that is fantastic and memorable from start to finish, but this is Machine Head's latest single. The only thing I remember is the "IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THEEEEERE" bit, which is the ultimate moment of cringe here.

Positives? Well, at least Robb Flynn sings with a bit of conviction. It sounds like he really means this, which begs the question of where he is mentally. Is he going to be okay? His vocals are by no means outstanding, but he's the only one trying, it seems, and this is why it doesn't get a rock-bottom 0% score. Flynn should be an actor and star in the next American Pie movie, since he's good at pretending to be a teenager, even though, he's a grown ass man.

Overall, "Is There Anybody Out There?" is a horrible, yet unmemorable, song that further proves that Machine Head are a ridiculously overrated band.

This song sucks hard. Really hard. And I'm a big nu metal fan, but this is a real nadir for the band. Not The Burning Red, or Supercharger, but THIS. It features a really big downfall for the band, and for their reputation as a band "resurrected from the dead."

Although it isn't Davidian or Aesthetics of Hate, the riff is is pretty decent- but it is still very boring and repetitive for consisting of barely 2 or 3 power chords. Heck, even Limp Bizkit's Break Stuff has more deepness and musical variety than this song. After the riff ends (which takes about 5 seconds) it shifts into a really bad clean-only section (which is something like 5 Seconds of Summer would do), which comes back to about a couple of the riff-repeating, not before a really horrendous mallcore-catchy chorus comes in. And this formula accompanies the entire song, which can sure make a man go insane.

The musical variety, except for the things listed above, is really the lowest the band has ever achieved. The drums here SUCK. Simple bass-drum-whatever stuff that Limp Bizkit can do better. They are played in a beat that resembles a head that is banging on a wall, which is exactly what will happen as soon as you turn on this almost-5-minutes of manure. Even the lyrics here are atrocious, but in a very funny way. They rabble about Phil Anselmo's "WHITE POWER!!!" incident, but don't describe it well and instead sound like a typical love/hate teen anger wank-fest:

Is the fear to speak that no one dares
So will I stand here all alone?
Live my life like I’ll die tonight
Dream like I’ll live forever"

So skip this if you haven't understood that from this review and the ones before me. Go listen to good nu metal like early Korn, Snot, Soulfly, and even Slipknot, to get an idea of what better nu metal sounds like.

Oh, and Phil, please don't do that "WHITE POWER!!!" mistake again so it won't inspire writing shitty songs like this.

I started listening to metal when I found bands like Machine Head and other nu-metal or even metalcore (but not mallcore) bands. Those days belong to the past even if once in a while I choose to return to some of my all time favorites. I remember how 'Unto the Locust' seemed pretty damn heavy to me back then and I can even recall reading articles about how influential Machine Head's debut has been. So the question here is: what happened? Is Mr. Robb Flynn getting old or is this song that much of a piece of crap that it takes only three to four listens to make your mind up and scorch it with such a rating. If you have ever read any review of mine (surely by accident of course) you probably know that I always try to find something to praise. Only few albums get ratings below 30% but trust me if negative ratings were a thing here, I could use one right now.

It's not just the bland songwriting, the tiring everlasting buildup that never gets a proper tension releasing break or the fact that there is no solo. It is the reason behind this track's existence that makes me cringe. You all know the incident that occurred back in winter (it was winter right?) with Phil Anselmo. The guy had the whole world hating him and I won't lie: I was very upset by that story as well. Robb Flynn made a video about that, uploaded it and it was cool. He just stated his opinion and that is perfect with me. On the other hand Anselmo was apologizing once every two days. So why the fuck would you take it to such lengths Robb? Just because someone has an opinion that doesn't fit yours, that automatically means you have to keep hating and even try to humiliate him? I'm not taking this any further because the single's quality speaks for itself. There is none.

Music wise, this is despair incarnate. Not like the depressive suicidal black metal (DSBM) despair. More like: "This sucks so much, I want to end my life" despair. Have you ever wondered how a boyband producing a 'metal' track would sound like? Listen to this and find out. Have you ever wondered what a track with about two different beats and shitty riffs and NO FUCKING GUITAR SOLO would sound like? Listen to this and find out. Have you ever wondered what a frog with a sore throat trying to scream would sound like? You guessed it! Listen to this and find out. Sorry Robb but your band is going downwards lately. And it's okay. But being a big bully to someone you have already confronted is not okay. Basically you promote EXACTLY the same attitude as him and maybe even worse. Stick to making your band great again and leave that bullshit aside. Avoid this abomination of a single at all costs guys there's nothing of worth here.

Favorite tracks: Read the review again. You see it now? The answer is NO WAY!

0/100.

When I did my review for Machine Head's last album, 2014's "Bloodstone & Diamonds", I was far from impressed. Machine Head always was one of those hit-or-miss kind of bands that could never keep consistent from album-to-album, and their latest album was somewhat of a confirmation that things aren't heading towards the better. In fact, there was the song "Now We Die" which refrain I even made a pun of in the review title for that album. Safe to say, that album was something of their burial casket for me.

So where do we have the boys now in 2016? Well, if the last album was bad (and it was), then I don't really have any good news here. Many still remember earlier in Machine Head's career when they did one particularly horrendous album, which was "Supercharger" in 2001. It was in the midst of their nu-metal crisis and the band had totally lost all its balls from their early albums. Now this song is once again a huge step into that very direction, and dare I say that this time is even worse than the last one.

The song itself is really disappointing as far as a Machine Head (could) go. It sounds extremely uninspired and just made up rather quickly during some slow afternoon in the back of their tour bus. What makes it even worse are the lyrics and the rap-style vocals which feel forced. "Is there anybody out there?" sure is a title that sounds like a call-out of some sort, and it is about Robb calling out Phil Anselmo earlier this year after the latter got drunk and made his infamous Nazi-salute at some show. Robb Flynn did a fairly beheld YouTube video after the incident in which he attacked Anselmo together with the rest of the world, and everybody thought that was that. But no, now Machine Head returns with this single and according to Robb Flynn this is, once again, at least partially about Anselmo and his mistake.

This song felt old before its first note had even reached my ears. The fact that it's another attack from Robb Flynn, on a man who has already apologized officially (about three times) in the media, is just sad and a rather obvious proof of Flynn's infamous self-righteousness. What is even more sad is the fact that this song is so fucking bad that it was Machine Head's nail in the coffin for me. Sorry Robb, nobody is gonna answer your call.

I really don't understand what happened here. Machine Head has never been a band that particularly blew me away, although they managed to put on a good live show when I saw them three years ago, and I fairly enjoy most of their music. I just don't go out of my way to listen to them half of the time. "Is There Anybody Out There?" is the latest track from Flynn and Co. What baffles me is that this is basically an even more watered down "Supercharger" with additional mallcore sprinkled on top. Coming from someone who enjoys a few bands labeled as "mallcore", this song serves no purpose.

I didn't listen to the last album "Bloodstone & Diamonds" although I enjoyed "Unto the Locust" quite a bit when it first dropped. Basically it added a bit more technicality and progression to the band's groove/thrash metal sound that they established in the mid 1990s. This song seems to resemble "The Burning Red" and "Supercharger" with it returning to the nu metal sound the band experimented with on those two albums at the turn of the century. Except it sounds even more watered down than those two albums! Which I didn't even know was possible. The riffs are extremely boring nu metal crunches that only add more teenage angst to the music. Just give Robb Flyn a fucking Snickers, for the sake of the gods!

Oh, and where is the solo? I've heard "Bloodstone & Diamonds" had some killer solos, and I KNOW "Unto the Locus" does. There is no solo in this song to give the music room to breathe, it just sucks 100% of the time. Bad Machine Head, bad! Really wish I could get the 4 and a half minutes of my life I wasted listening to this back, but oh well...

Machine Head is one of those bands that seems dead set on destroying themselves every time they manage to gain a little bit of that long-lost credibility that some of their membership had during the thrash craze of the late 80s. What's worse is that the personality at the center of it all, namely Robb Flynn, has been completely oblivious to the fact that he's been out of the whole non-conformist game for quite a while and, all tough guy posturing and other assorted bullshit aside, has become an aging trend-hopper with little grounding to speak of. Nevertheless, they began to show some signs of coalescence around a modern groove/thrash sound with some quirky progressive trimmings around the edges on their last couple albums and even managed a few winning songs here and there. With the tide of current events, however, this upward trend was cut off at the knees with what could be described as Machine Head's worst song to date, and a long-feared return to the horrid nu-metal days of this band's middle era that even their detractors were happy to see go for greener pastures.

Is There Anybody Out There is a perfectly horrendous throwback to this band's mallcore sophomore opus Supercharger, complete with all the usual trimmings. Amid the assorted mishmashes of "emotional" whispered speaking, bad imitations of the prototypical grunge vocal persona or "yarl", some short yet extremely off-putting spoken/rapped passages and a really whiny pseudo-gruff singing style that's about as close to Fred Durst territory as can be, something is clearly absent. This missing element is what is known by most as a metal song, as in something with some kind of riff activity beyond banging and chugging on a few chords and mixing in a bunch of grating, high end guitar drones. Even by the over-simplified standard of groove metal, this doesn't come close to making the cut and sounds castrated even compared to the deepest nadir of Soulfly's early output. One is forced to ask yet another question in "Why the fuck is Phil Demmel even in the band anymore?" given the lack of any kind of noteworthy lead guitar activity, let alone the respectable guitar solo work that painted much of Unto The Locust and Bloodstone And Diamonds.

From start to finish, this is an unadulterated shit storm of pseudo-epic proportions. How anyone can like this and the last couple Machine Head albums simultaneously defies logic, as they can not be any more diametrically opposed to each other musically. There is no excuse for crap like this, even from the likes of Robb Flynn, who seems to want to be both Jonathan Davis and PC Principal. Sure, it's understandable to think that Phil Anselmo is an idiot and that his onstage antics border on retarded, such is the nature of people who get drunk off their ass and then proceed to make tasteless jokes while onstage. But lyrically indicting all but the entire metal scene because of this makes Flynn an even bigger douche bag than Anselmo, not to mention drawing further questions about Flynn's preference to money over substance. But even without the lyrics under consideration, this should come with the label: "Warning: Listening to this will likely cause your ears to contract AIDS, hit the play button at your own risk."

'Is There Anybody Out There?' was a single that came out in the wake of Phil Anselmo shouting 'white power' at a show and Robb Flynn's subsequent rant about it online, something released as a call for anybody who found Phil's behaviour and similar incidents detestable to push back one way or another. Musically or lyrically this didn't win over many fans and with the benefit of hindsight, was a precursor to their abominable 2018 album Catharsis. It is possibly one of the worst songs the band has ever released and the band in question is Machine Head, so that really is saying something.

This song returns to a modernised form of the nu metal sound present on Supercharger, in that it's laden with effects and the vocals are pushed to the forefront with the guitars taking a back seat. There is only one riff in the song, a 3 note groove found in the intro, after the chorus, and in the verses - albeit in a stop-start form. It's not at all interesting, aggressive, heavy or memorable in any way but honestly the song isn't that guitar driven so this isn't the biggest issue (but it doesn't help, given how bad everything else is.) There are various melodic accents to the song; whistling keyboards, leads and a more melodic groove under the verses, that are all designed to give this song the melodrama it needs to go with its very important lyrics. At one point towards the end these all coalesce in a quiet section with background vocals to heighten the angst and bleeding-heart factor to levels only seen from the likes of metalcore or modern post-hardcore; only it doesn't manage to stir any sort of emotional response in the listener, which is a problem when the song is trying so hard to do so for the sake of its message. There isn't even a solo to give some sort of respite; the entire backdrop to this thing fails at being aggressive or emotionally compelling.

As stated the song isn't very instrumentally oriented, with more emphasis being placed on the vocals. This speaks to its construction as a vehicle for preaching and putting the message before the music, given how effortless and dull the instruments are. The vocal performance is equally terrible, with Flynn's standard overdone melodic shouting over the chorus that shoots for aggressive and powerful but ends up being try-hard; even Phil Anselmo with his lacerated throat and smoker's lungs sounded more convincingly angry around this time than Robb does here. The verses are delivered over that stop-start groove, with the groove stopping for Robb to give two lines at a time in a really wimpy semi-spoken/semi-melodic delivery that is again trying too hard to be angsty. Things get very Asking Alexandria-esque during the bridge where his distorted vocals come over a chugging breakdown, and then his layered clean vocals are sung over strings and keyboards; it's laughably melodramatic and cliché and he sounds terrible. Never mind the lyrics, which read like an attack on people for allowing racism to continue - which is true for some of course but this isn't how you win people over; you come across as preachy and condescending.

This track is a preachy, clichéd mess. It was plainly written just to get a message across and Robb needed what he thought would be an ideal backdrop to sell his crucial message to anyone who would listen. What resulted was a terrible hybrid of nu metal and metalcore with some of the worst vocals and instrumentation the band has ever done, even including Catharsis. The band's attempts at being heavy here don't work, only beating out their two nu metal albums in that regard and the attempts at being emotional are so corny as to be laughable and pathetic. Obviously Robb doesn't know what sells lyrically or musically among the metal community; his whole crusade against Phil was met with snorts of derision from metal fans at large while this song bombed, and with good reason.

This doesn't sound like anything off of Blackening or Unto the Locust (you know, decent thrash metal). No, this is Machine Head returning to their crappy, nu-metal, Supercharger-era sound.

After a boring opening the song launches into a rhythm section so generic that it sounds like Slipknot wrote it. Machine Head has written some catchy riffs but this is one is purely unmemorable. Rob sounds best when he is growling his lyrics instead of singing them, so it is a shame that he mainly sticks to the latter. What is worse is how uninspired the lyrics are (not joking, half of the lyrics are "is there anybody out there?"). How is this the same person who wrote Aesthetics of Hate?

The chorus is overly melodic and unmemorable and wouldn't be out of place on a popular radio station (which isn't good). The use of violins doesn't work in this song like it did in the songs off of Bloodstone and Diamonds. Here it comes off cheesy instead of majestic.

Maybe, I thought, the song would improve after the second chorus. Nope. The bridge is just a re-hash of the boring intro. No interesting riffs. No solo even. The lead guitar hardly does anything for that matter. Cue a final chorus and the song ends.

If I wasn't a fan of the band then this song would give me absolutely no desire to check out their other material. But since I am a fan it pains me to hear them make a song so terrible. Come on guys, I'm trying to forget about your late 90s/early 2000s output.

In the wake of the whole Phil Anselmo – white supremacist fiasco, Flava Flynn has yet again decided to cash in on the whole ordeal by doing what he does best – by releasing really, really shitty, faceless music. Instead of not letting the embarrassingly shameful debacles of a drunken buffoon get to him, and letting the whole thing go like everyone else did, we are granted with this travesty. What we have here sounds like every nu-metal/metalcore/post-hardcore/whatever song in existence, only this time tinged with more whiny Asking Alexandria and Black Veil Brides influences than even the most hardened M.H. fan should be comfortable with, and painted with all the radio-friendly, melodic prose of your average Sleeping With Sirens track.

While I have not heard much from the previous two Machine Head LPs released since “The Blackening”, I can still recognize the good ol' Machine Head pallet – more shitty nu-metal grooves that shy away inconsequentially beneath the vocals that sits obnoxiously high in the overly-produced mix, with a format of alternating between tuff-guy core vocals and whiny whispered parts that directly rip off Johnathan Davis, and a pseudo-epic yet cringe-inducing chorus that recalls your average metalcore song. There seems to be some limp synth-string layers here and there throughout the choruses, flaunted even further around two minutes and forty seconds in, when the song just falls apart into a pit of unintentional hilarity. Much of what made the better songs in Machine Head's catalog so great are missing here, namely with songs like “Wolves” which hinted at some crushing thrash mastery, or “Halo” and “Clenching the Fists of Dissent” with their stylistic riff variations. “Is Anybody Out There?” just sounds like your typical “A Day to Remember”-esque, gauged-earing-wearing radio-pop with some Slipknot thrown in.

It's just ironic that this song is a diss track towards Phil Anselmo, seeing as Machine Head is a more or less a Pantera copy band and all... Also strange is the lyrical subject matter at hand, as it sounds as if this song is meant to appeal to metalcore kiddies who most likely wouldn't know (or care of) the situation – that being Anselmo's racist dumbassery at the 2016 Dimebash. It's just a completely inexplicable cash grab of a track, and I know the band members are capable of better. Rob, please get back with Vio-Lence, where your talents matter the most.

I know this is a rather short review, but there is really not much to say about this song – it just simply fucking sucks.