Reviewer - MeatWolf (Encyclopaedia Metallum)One can easily lose the count of unique metal acts tracked down by Spinefarm Records. As every commercial enterprise, the label cares about its own income above all else, still the amount of talented beginners signed is really impressive. Not that many of Spinefarm's bands gained some serious success but the main thing about these Finns' work is about the support and help provided for various Finnish / Swedish musicians (with original ideas or just good music) which would have kept making underground demos in hope for a deal or just splitted-up without any attention given otherwise. And if some band considers Spinefarm its home, you can expect to hear interesting music from the guys at the very least and usually something more than just that. In the year 2006 Spinefarm signed a deal with the young crew named Machine Supremacy (MaSu), hailing from the small town of Luleå, Sweden, which had already gained a real amount of success on the underground scene and in the net due to their unique style combining heavy guitars and 8-bit sounds of SidStation synthesizer and due to several dozens of tracks offered for free download at their website. The band even had one long play under their belt released in 2004 and called Deus Ex Machinae (DXM). Much water has flowed under the bridge since then, the band released two more full-lengths, experienced several line-up changes and other stuff usual for every band out there. Their fourth effort saw the light of day on November 3, 2010 and was entitled A View From The End Of The World.
If someone plays this record right after DXM, skipping everything that was in between, (s)he will surely notice that the band learnt to do literally EVERYTHING since then. No, really, these guys seem to be able to play whatever they think of! Started with interesting sound concept and loads of SID backed with heavy guitars ten years ago, these Swedes ended up with an explosive shake of power metal, heavy metal, alternative metal, pop rock and punk with distinctive SID samples added, not to mention the monstrous solos: it's hard to believe these were composed and performed by the same people, who initially didn't intend to use the guitars that much. There's no need to pick the sound of one guitar from under another one here like raisins from a stale bun, double leads are laid down in a precise and thorough manner, as regards the solos themselves, with the exception of that one in Cybernesis, which is a heavy metal-oriented track, all the others are capable of driving you out of your senses. It's a quintessence of an unfettered, intelligent, genius melodic escalation of the best tunes every song can offer, it's both pure art and fourteen needles ripping right into the brain and pressing nucleus accumbens directly. The catharsis comes at the end of Rocket Dragon's third minute, when Jonas "Gibli" Rörling and Andreas "Gordon" Gerdin, two MaSu axemen, play a solo over one minute in length. Gus G.? Roland Grapow? Timo Tolkki? Andre Olbrich? Like, WHO? Can they or anyone else write fourteen brilliant solos fitted in fourteen album tracks on one long play? The answer seems to be negative. And it's better to be quiet about what kind of guitar / keyboard duels are played with the help of SidStation or what kind of keyboard solo one can hear in Crouching Camper Hidden Sniper. Add an outstanding melodious riffing style, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and great share of humor and you'll get a rough idea about what kind of band recorded this album. And there is so much more than this.
Robert "Gazz" Stjärnström doesn't possess a wide vocal range, still he a) keeps improving his "chords mastery" with every record b) has a great skill in "lyrical intoning", no matter if this is an anti-religious sneer, band's native video games topic described in a pretty much funny way, social issues or just some cool own-made story c) sings such an insanely wide spectrum of melodic soundscapes that you just get carried away without any concern given about who's behind the microphone rack. Curious remark, most of the killer, soulslaying vocal passages are not just sung but aspirated with fading out, low tones, the style is extremely bizarre (just try to hum that soft but emotional «I see it all laid to waste…» line in A View From The End Of The World, almost whispering «Run, run away…» in Rocket Dragon or subtle «You’re in hell and this is your own fault…» in Persona and you'll get the idea). Eccentric for power metal, this vocal ain't a crooked experiment but a fine boon, a real discovery instead.
The music comprises a lot of outasight peaceful passages, when guitars don’t scalp, the drums don't kick in and aggression is scaled around zero degree: magic, dreamlike rhodes piano touches in Persona, calm before the apocalyptic storm in Remnant's verses, eclectic keyboard breaks of Force Feedback, the ending of A View From The End Of The World with guitars like coming off a cliff leaving a blazing evanescent synth trail and finally World Of Light, a softening transition to the second part of the album, where bass parts are more interesting than those of keys (huh!). At the same time MaSu have a perfect idea where to "blast" a song and let the spring break loose. This spring is mostly Robert himself: fast-paced verses of sid-punkish Shinigami landside with a pile of riffs when «I long only for nightmares, FOR APOCALYPSE AND WAR» and «So ready to inflict his sense OF JUSTICE ON MANKIND» lines sweep in, Remnant's chorus is ignited with atomic blast radiance at «TELL ME if sun remains…» heights but this technique can be exemplified at its best around the end of Action Girl which evokes the picture of Robert hurling the mic at the wall after screaming «Just take your clothes off AND ENJOY!». Guitar melody not just flies to the skies but takes the hell off with the third cosmic speed out of this fucking Solar System. Apart from all the above, the band doesn't gush the music with great deal of chiptunes but uses those along with sampling in a more moderate way showing the genuine arrangement prowess.
All this hints at the most powerful, ultimate three-layered melodic approach, the rarest case when vocals, guitars and keyboards are fully and equally present, not diminishing or overtaking one another. Being also born from one melodic source, three instruments both take lead and sound in unison, whichever the music demands.
As to the general sound, it's a bit surprising that the album is less heavy and metal than the previous effort, Overworld, which was frankly presented as pure metal record (surprising because Spinefarm seemed to aim at making a full-time battle unit out of this band, so to say). Despite this, guitars can easily be considered the best in entire MaSu's discography, there are helluva lot of guitar licks all across the album, half of the riffs is designed for lead not rhytm guitar and one can pick a random song, but especially the s/t one, Action Girl or Rocket Dragon, hearken to the leading guitar — and regain conscience at some point after approx. three full-time album spins, resurfacing from a torpor. DXM wasn't about such a playing style at all, Redeemer contained several astonishing but short solos, though showing the band's excellent composing skills in this area, Overworld was split into "riffs & leads" as most metal records are and finally A View From The End Of The World is a total songwriting liberty — and not just in the guitar aspect. All the more interesting to hear all this with an alternative-oriented, a bit deliberately dirty mixing.
MaSu are one of the most, if not the most experimental power metal-related band and this doesn't need an additional clarification for anyone familiar with the band. A View From The End Of The World appears to be experimental to a certain degree for the band itself, drawing inspiration from mass sources including their early works as well. The first half is more power metal, while the second one leans towards various experiments: punkish & DXM-ed Shinigami, Crouching Camper Hidden Sniper and Indiscriminate Murder Is Counter-Productive, The Greatest Show On Earth, pop-rockish to the backbone, Action Girl and One Day In The Universe, more metal by design but still the same as for their cores, hard rock / heavy metal Cybernesis, which are, despite totally different from other songs, don't slip out from the context which unfortunately happened with several songs on Overworld, namely Gimme More, SID Icarus and even Skin. The album ends like it started, crowned with the fourth part of March Of The Undead, Remnant, picking up the anthemic epic mood of the third part and referring a listener back to deep and intense sound of the opener, also closing the bitter topic of monotheistic religions' nature.
Machinae Supremacy was on its way to recording such an album like A View From The End Of The World from the very start, so it wasn't that unexpected, but the actual implementation of all its potential here is stunning. Power metal, as any other style, rests upon several lineaments, and bands playing this style either try to explore or develop them. Some succeed more, some less and some push these lineaments to the limit. These Swedes began with a truly eclectic Deus Ex Machinae six years ago and had pretty good chances to do something like that ever since. And finally this came alive — A View From The End Of The World became exactly the embodiment, the embodiment of modernity and contemporaneity. This is the foremost edge, vanguard of a free art, to a degree it's possible in this framework, a benchmark manifestation of the experience gained in the style over two decades in league with band’s up-to-date genius, a unique vision of familiar things, an idea which outstripped the time, still being enclosed in the habitual shape, a kick in the face of scepsis, a brick wall tombing any doubts.
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