Xenon

In my earlier appraisal of Empyrean, I stated that Xenon was a step back and a fall from the tightrope that Mechina so precariously balances themselves upon through the utilization of their unique blend of styles. Time for my own revisionism yet again, because Xenon basically embodies the best elements from both Conqueror and Empyrean, forging them into a more tempered Martian steel. On a surface level, this isn't too far off from the last two albums. Tiberi is still churning out his majestic programmed orchestrations alongside a disorienting Sybreed-esque rhythm section. No time for fancy leadwork, instead watch as the keyboards and auto-tuned male vocals fill the melodic void. It is certainly a feat of bombastic excess and lack of inhibition, even if it still grows very tiring after a short while.

If anything, Mechina has finally isolated and shot the earlier production imbalances into the æther. Tiberi's stuttering, mechanical riffs are meaty and upfront. Their tone is interesting, if anything befitting of the cosmic subject matter at hand. The distortion is very harsh and direct, sounding very bottle-necked and deliberate in it's approach - essentially the antithesis of warm and full-bodied. This lends a great appeal to the groove sections, which haphazardly flip on and off akin to sequence of diodes. Add this to Gavin's snappy percussive performance and now we're starting to get somewhere.

This leaves the keyboards, which are honestly the main draw of this band anyway. Imagine sitting in a movie theater right as a trailer for a huge, bombastic Summer blockbuster starts up. The lights dim and the reverberating bass tickles your back as everything rumbles forth. Mechina is pretty much that for an entire hour plus guitars. It goes without saying that there are imbalances in this approach, as Tiberi has yet to fully enthrall me for an entire album. He gets dangerously close to modern Nightwish at times during "Erebus" and still feels the need to shoehorn in the female Enya vocals, but you still have to give him some credit as a composer. Dude should look into a career in scoring films, as he has a serious gift in that department. This is where Mechina blows bands like Xerath to cosmic dust, as the latter fails to comprehend the concept of tension and release. As overblown and theatrical as Mechina's orchestrations may become, you can at least sense that there is thought put into the arrangements. There are never awkward joins and every track flows seamlessly into the next (which seems to be the band's trademark by this point) yielding a single, massive soundtrack to the cosmos.

It is always difficult to isolate individual tracks on Mechina albums, but the title track, "Alithea," and "Thales" are obvious standouts. These can be enjoyed well enough in isolation, and are relatively direct and forthright in their appeal. The title track even features some churning tremolos that are certainly new ground for the group and well worth experimenting with again in the future. The only remaining major gripe I have is the presence of tonal stagnancy. What I mean is that while the keyboards are almost always on overdrive, the atmosphere is always tense and/or foreboding, and rarely does it stray from this path. Even Empyrean had "Imperialus," which served as a nice break in the action and added some triumphant overtones. Xenon doesn't really have that, and it remains a compositional flaw that needs to be rectified if Tiberi truly wants to take his material to the next level.

Xenon can certainly be a lot to take in on first listen, and comes dangerously close to sounding like a cacophony at times, but Mechina has their style down pat by this point and don't appear to be going out of their way to impress anybody but themselves. Tiberi is the true mastermind here, so I'll certainly keep an eye on whatever material he pumps out in the future, be it in the metal field or not.