Conqueror

I recently experienced Conqueror's direct successor Empyrean, and while it had some moments of true brilliance, it was let down by a disaster of a production job that all but neutered whatever little metal appeal remained after taking into account Tiberi's attention-grabbing symphonic textures. With much relief I can report that Conqueror avoids falling prey to the same dreaded pitfalls, even if it still suffers from a few imbalances of it's own.

While the riffs are still unusually buried by most modern standards, I can't help but feel that too invasive a guitar sound would crumble the yin and yang-esque balancing act Mechina employs regarding their metal disposition and the oft-dreaded symphonics. This doesn't mean that they always pull it off here, but the proceedings are certainly more free-flowing than the choppy Empyrean. The guitars' delivery embodies a synthesis of grooving stop-start drones with occasional palm-muted interjections. It tries to be progressive and technical regarding bizarre time-signatures, but ultimately comes off as second fiddle to the soaring keyboard melodies. At their best, the riffs groove along in a Meshuggah-Sybreed sort of way, with the dry and dessicated tone adding to their cybernetic appeal. The distortion never builds into the towering monolith of Martian construct it really wants to be, but it doesn't necessarily detract much either. The only track on Empyrean that had any riffs of note was "Asterion", so Conqueror easily blows it's direct successor out of the aether in that regard.

The band wants the bulk of the appeal to center around the symphonics, and while they are brash and upfront, they more often than not end up quarreling with the guitars over which should man Mechina's ship. When they synths take over they truly take over, like on the intro "Incipient Tragoedia" and "A.D. Astra". It ends up taking tertiary experimental elements like the auto-tuned male vocals to pull Conqueror's sights onto the intended target. As such, "Non Serviam" is the true highlight of the album, going through a number of disparate movements without losing it's footing. The title track and "Anti-Theist" are in a similar vein but tend to meander more often than they should. The band tries delivering a straight up, neck-jerking atom smasher in "Internecion", but Gavin's irritatingly upfront drums really damage it's lasting power. His kit sounds really snappy, irritating, and processed. The buried nature of the percussion on Empyrean forced this deficit into the shadows on said album, but it is harder to hide this time around. The vocals are also more upfront but are just sort of there, not doing much and ultimately falling by the wayside as the esoteric melodies tug at the listener.

Just like it's successor, Conqueror is best digested in a single sitting, as the tracks blend into one another, ultimately forming one cohesive whole rather than a selection of songs. Even if Mechica never truly blows open the hatches like they would like you to believe here, Conqueror is quite consistent and well-meaning in it's haughty delivery. While I was lucky enough to procure a physical copy, the bonus tracks aren't much to write home about. The orchestral variants are nice if you are really that enthralled by Tiberi's compositions separate from the riffs, but the instrumental "Error [Restricted]" sounds like a B-side off of Empyrean and is a track best skipped.

At any rate, this is still one of Mechina's best albums, as a relative measure of restraint is employed regarding the keyboards and the pounding rhythm patterns. Tiberi has clearly got his style down, he just needs to tinker with it ever so slightly to take it to the next level. The grooving, churning nature of the riffs will turn many a metalhead away from Mechina's dapper appeal, so the band is already fighting an uphill battle in that regard. While most of Mechina's later material falls well short, Conqueror gets it right more often than not.