Machinae Supremacy

Album Title: 
Phantom Shadow
Release Date: 
Monday, August 25, 2014
Review Type: 

Robert Stjärnström - vocals

Jonas Rörling - lead guitar

Andreas Gerdin – bass, guitar, keys

Niklas Karvonen – drums

Tomi Luoma -  guitar

Machinae Supremacy’s latest release, Phantom Shadow, is an excellent blend of acoustic and electric instruments. The album is quite charming given the fact that it’s a story. Usually every song we hear is some type of story, but it’s rare to see a whole album in which every song coincides and links up to create a full story. The intro to the album, ‘I Wasn’t Made for The World I Left behind,’ I found extremely poetic. One of the best album intros I’ve ever heard. In the song, ‘Versus,’ you find the classic Metal guitar intro. Something lots of us Metal fans love to hear. Although the Metal genre is dying out in the minds of most people, Machinae Supremacy integrates an almost fairytale-like aspect through the storyline, making it much more enjoyable to hear as well as giving it an aspect not many songs/albums have. The vocals in some songs are similar to lots of early metal hits. In the song ‘Europa’, I found a beautiful mix of that classic metal sound and a modern, sweeter sound which created extremely enjoyable moments in the song that gave me the chills. It definitely made for an excellent mesh altogether. It may seem like such a tiny aspect of the vocals, but people really look for individuality when it comes to musical groups, and vocals are a big part of that. Except those strictly instrumental groups of course.

Tracklist:

1. I Wasn't Made for the World I Left Behind

2. The Villain of this Story

3. Perfect Dark

4. Europa

5. Throne of Games

6. Meanwhile in the Hall Of Shadows

7. Phantom Battle

8. Captured (Sara's Theme)

9. Renegades

10. Beyond Good and Evil

11. The Second One

12. Redemption Was Never Really My Thing

13. The Bigger They Are the Harder They Fall

14. Versus

15. Mortal Wound (Skye's Requiem)

16. Hubnester Rising

78/100