It wasn’t like Machine Head was in a bad place in 2007, it’s just that they’d lost some momentum some 13 years into their career. Their third album, 1999’s The Burning Red, found the band flirting with rap-metal and lost them some audience, kind of similar to what happened with Suicide Silence earlier this year (come to think of it, both albums were produced by Ross Robinson. Perhaps as a result, 2001’s Supercharger was a commercial failure. The band started to get some mojo back with 2003’s Through the Ashes of Empires, but that album wasn’t even initially released in America. By the time The Blackening came out in 2007, there weren’t a ton of expectations, but the band knocked it out of the park, creating perhaps their finest hour (or 61:04). The eight-track album, featuring live staples “Aesthetics of Hate,” “Halo,” “Clenching the Fists of Disssent” and “Beautiful Mourning,” brought Machine Head right back into the spotlight. Yesterday, the album turned ten, and Flynn left an epic post about the album. Among some fun facts:
- It’s only the band’s fourth-best selling album, with their first three outselling it
- It was their first Grammy nomination (for “Aesthetics of Hate”)
- It’s the album that got them banned by Disney
- Machine Head toured behind the album for over three years
All of the facts about it are great, so check the post below, and give a listen.
