Andromeda

Let's say earth was under attack, our planet is slowly being invaded from all sides and is subsequently decimated. The last remnants have escaped into space, forced to survive in the vast cold emptiness. If a metal song were to encompass all these images and themes, then Andromeda would certainly be that specific candidate.

Old school metal heads beware. This is not a song you headbang to while swilling beer and shouting like a retarded banshee, nor is it a song that has a 3-minute guitar solo expressing little to nothing (except for the lead guitarist’s ability to masturbate profusely to his own material behind closed doors, of course). This is a single that is trying to tractor beam you into Mechina’s sequel of Conqueror, another stellar opus. Deep, brooding harmonic symphonies back up the bands artillery (drums & guitars) which are all pointing at the vocalist who is literally screaming through the heavens in order to bring the atheist, cosmos-ripping theme of this song to life. Those of you who have listened to their previous album should take note that in terms of musicianship the same flavor is ever present. Seemless merging of growling and blissful cleans between movements combined with orchestral arrangements John Williams would be proud of. The drums and guitars a la fear factory play with synergy and compliment the violent systematic headbutt effect once found in the Digimortal era.

That doesn’t say this song isn’t heavy, it just requires a certain artistic taste which calls upon imagination rather than our violent, animalistic metal tendencies (growl, blast beats, growl, cymbal crash, growl, double bass drumming, growl, repeat). Not that this style is not good, it’s just nice to visit another dimension while listening to music, and with metal, the dimensions are usually similar, but not in this case. The vocal and drumming similarities to Fear Factory are still present, but since when is that a bad thing? Fear factory is awesome. Fear factory backed up by a grandiose orchestra calling to space? Sign me up Kirk. With the bridge to the next album complete, the galaxy is now left wide open for their third full length album. I usually don’t give out perfect scores because I don’t think anything can be perfect (nor do I think an abstract opinion can be portrayed numerically), I just personally did not and could not find anything that could have made this song any better and evocative than it already is.