From their EPK, “Hailing from the grey, industrial and notoriously rain swept streets of Manchester, England, THE MACHINIST are hell-bent on exposing the gaping, endless emptiness that lies behind the deceptive façade of human existence. Their mechanistic, blackened extreme metal is a ferocious attack on the arrogant conceit that our lives, our pale, flickering flames in the boundless universe, so fragile and ephemeral, have some kind of greater meaning. Yet they will ride their train, hurtling to the end, with a maniacal laugh and a proud freedom, screaming for more speed, spewing their disgust on the passive and the lifeless who waste their precious moments in willful blindness and contemptible subservience. “Contempt For Life” is a jackhammer attack on those without the courage for truth, a defiant glare into the eye of annihilation fueled by solos like liquid flame and riffs hewn from acerbic misanthropy.”

The album has eight songs, and the title track is first. It comes out of the gate like a brain worm that has been living in a cadaver’s head…filthy, disgusting, and fill of foul smells and pungent bodily fluids. There are Progressive undertones here within the chaos, mostly in the way that the band expertly handles time. “Cathedrals Fall” is another densely packed song, and at times, you feel as if they wheels are going to come off the speeding hell train, but somehow, the band manages to keep the vehicle on the road. Surprisingly, the clean passages are also quite melodic, and the extremes are every more pronounced. “Brace” is another energized song that seems to capture the spirit and destructive power of a lightning bolt. The rate at which this music moves would rival the speed of light.

“Gog” gives the listener the first chance to catch their breath. It’s an instrumental, with tense tones in the background, clean guitars, and some keyboards. “Demagogue” is another jarring rollercoaster of a ride through rough terrain. Just try to keep up with the ever-shifting meter…it’s an exercise in futility. “Magog” is the second short instrumental, slowing things down just a bit. It sparkles with electronic melodies that are dark and tense. “The Anthropic Mistake” is like the coming of a storm that you can see on the horizon. Winds intensify, dark skies enter, and rain falls like a deluge. There are subtle moments of melody mixed in with the madness, but they are short lived. “Cracks” closes the album, and it has tension as thick as fog. From there, it rolls forward with all the might of a machine crushing skulls.

This was a crushingly heavy album that took no prisoners. The pacing was often frantic, and the sheer amount of notes that they band was able to squeeze into the compositions was amazing. At times, some of the chaos was broken with melodies, but they were often short lived, and blotted out by the weight of the album. The musicianship here was nearly impeccable as well.