GREENMACHINE (The Archives Of Rotten Blues) CD
Aaaarghh......finally one of my favourite Japanese bands is back on the map after some years. The first album "D.A.M.N." belongs still to my personal top 20, but I missed their uncompromising energy on the follow-up release "The Earth Beater". I don't know any other band on this rotten planet who could be compared with GREENMACHINE, and it's great that nothing had changed with this new album released by Diwphalanx Records. Once again the band blasting away all average bands with their ultra-amplified warp-factor blues/sludge/punk metal. Their manical energy is still unbroken and here they giving us nine more testosterone saturated anthems of sonic destruction. Taking the aural assault of above mentioned styles as a template, GREENMACHINE had carved out an even more intense, speed-driven variation on sludge, but unlike many of their similary heavy-obsessed peers, this group had the instrumental prowess to pull it off.
And when they slow things down as in "Into The Bigsleep (Red Eye Pt.3)", they nearly show every so-called doom band how to play HEAVY and sinister. What for a brutal monster! Apart of high-class riffs, they've added noise and feedback to the track to create a merciless and bleak downward spiral. The group had welded a keening sense of melody to their visceral Rock, alternating between grinding, bass heavy, mid-tempo uber-riffing ("Fire Never Ends") and all out pummeling ("Black Summer", "Punisher"). If you search for softer tracks - forget it - every song sledgehammered into the next and only a small acoustic part at the beginning of the seventh track gives you a very very short break. And with the last track "Hammer and Burner" they simply kick out Motörhead and I'm not kidding. The world needed "The Archives of Rotten Blues" and I hope, that the next album will follow very soon. Highly recommandable!
(KK)