Review: Machine Rox – 'Shout'

MACHINE ROX 

'Shout' 

STATIC DISTORTION RECORDS 

Following on from the release of their 'Activate Your Anger' EP earlier this year, industrial rockers Machine Rox return with their début full-length album, 'Shout'. It has been a long time coming with five EPs to their name already over the course of which they have tinkered with and continually polished their sound.

The band's last outing on 'Activate Your Anger', showed them at their tightest. Having now swelled into a fuller line-up, the production got a serious upgrade, and once niggling issues from previous releases seemed to be rectified. Confidence is often key, and with 'Activate Your Anger', they definitely had that. But will it translate over to a full-length release?

Thankfully it does. Those hard learned lessons have been built on and Machine Rox now sound like the band they've always aimed to be. It's evident from songs such as the opener 'Not Your Slave' as well as 'Feel Alive', 'Fight', 'Voices' and 'Highway' that the band have found the balance between their desire for a club-friendly electro sound as well as a hard hitting live rock potential.

There are still one or two bits that need to be kept in mind, such as the guitars fading too far into the background and the distorted vocals sounded too muffled in a few places. But overall, as with the previous EP, everything in terms of the song-writing as well as the performance seem to come together with much more ease.

Tracks like 'Not Your Slave', 'Who Am I', 'Nice Corruption' and 'Voices' are definitely the choicest cuts on the album with their undeniable dance floor credibility and undoubted live power. But most importantly, 'Shout' gives Machine Rox a solid platform from which to launch their attack.