Machine Mafia – Money Gone (EP)
Machine Mafia – Money Gone (EP)
Self-Released
Release Date: 07.09.24
Running Time: 16:32
Review by Dark Juan
Score: 10/10
Dark Juan is not normally an angry man. Normally, I prefer to beam with love and joy at the world and impart good news and positive fucking vibes everywhere I go. However, today is different and I am consumed by a rage so black and vast that the whole Calder valley is beneath it, shivering and looking worriedly for the awful monsters that are going to come screaming out of it, with titanium-coloured claws and sabre-teeth bared and dripping acidic spittle, fixing the fragile human in a yellow, predatory eye that is devoid of all humanity.
Yes, I am having computer issues. I believe I have sorted them out now, via the medium of swearing and shouting at it until it fucking well did my bidding. There were threats, there were entreaties and tears and wailing and screaming obscenities at the microprocessor-driven motherfucker as well as it being showed the rather large lump hammer I have in my tool cupboard and having described to it in EXQUISITE detail just what will happen to it unless it starts fucking behaving itself.
Clearly, my computer does not wish to experience the joy of flight, because it became THIS close to being launched through the fucking window before it decided that it should actually do the bidding of its meat-based master. Hence, today, I have activated the Platter of Splatter™ to play a four-track EP from the bastard chimera of OMNIBDGR and Pound Land, a horrific to behold beast called Machine Mafia, a scarily prolific and fecund creature, as it is not long since they last released some work (https://www.ever-metal.com/2024/07/19/machine-mafia-killzones-ep/ being the link to that fine piece of descriptive writing).
To describe Machine Mafia as music is disingenuous. Theirs is the fiendish jabbering from implanted human mouths on matt black, chitinous, eight-feet tall mantis-like creatures rampaging around cities, scattering terrified people in front of them, screaming scarlet flesh framed by filed white teeth howling with fury while shorting electronics spurt and fizzle and shriek as they try desperately to cope with the inchoate rage and differences in neural nets which aren’t really compatible with each other.
This four-track EP opens with ‘F.O.S’ and it is a speedy, punk-fuelled number that melds the snotty, socially-conscious fury of Punk with screaming feedback and broken, screeching guitars and terrifying levels of reverb that drown out vocals that spit venomous fury at the state the UK, and politics and arsehole governments in general and it is a short, sharp shock to the system of the poor listener (in this case me) that is as effective as a dirk between the ribs at just the right angle.
This is followed by ‘Tunnel’, which dials down the Punk fury in favour of atmospheric Dronescapes that are underpinned by a hopeless, dialled down, almost defeated vocal. The bass thunders beneath the stream of consciousness lyrics that detail the hopelessness of the less fortunate members of society as edged, flailing electronics squeal and moan and the occasional bit of guitar slices through the morass of bass-driven misery, while the song asks the question, “Is there any truth to cling to?”, and rather more importantly, “What madness is this?”
Well, Machine Mafia, I don’t have a fucking clue, lads. Just please don’t kill me because you are all clearly fucking unhinged. Hang on, is Machine Mafia the result of care in the community? Shit…
The next track on this absolutely demented piece of work is ‘Glistening Beetles’ and it is simply some clearly mentally unwell person rambling on about extroverted American psychopaths breaking eggs on people’s heads as a greeting and ascending into the upper level of arboreal realms and witnessing the small, wooden bungalows that howler monkeys have built up there, and seeing glistening beetles sitting on leaves and, very memorably, shitting out Maltesers.
Maltesers.
Maltesers.
Fucking MALTESERS!
Jesus, Machine Mafia are madder than Dark Juan’s imagination after half a bottle of absinthe and a shitload of acid.
The last track is called ‘Where’s The Money Gone?’ and returns to the Industrial Punk blueprint of the first song on the EP – fractured, overloaded amplifiers fizzing and buzzing over repetitive vocals very much in the vein of PiL and a predatory bassline that prowls the shadows. Fuck knows what Machine Mafia have done to the drums to make them sound like they do as well, overdriven and damaged.
Yes, my dear friends, Machine Mafia are scary as fuck. Their combination of rage, Industrial pounding, Punk fury and desire to utterly destroy their electronics through overloading them until they explode speaking to some horrible, buried piece of Dark Juan’s soul that needs never to be let out to see the light of day lest a number of institutions that serve the great and the good meet their destruction at my hands.
Like Pound Land, Machine Mafia make Dark Juan want desperately to exterminate the Government and do the fucking job myself. I couldn’t do a worse one.
Also, I’m never eating Maltesers again, now I know where they come from. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.
The usual caveats apply – Machine Mafia are rather more Industrial than Metal, but their music has a rage and fury that Metal can only dream of attaining, when it is not being too busy worshipping sopranos and mezzos in diaphanous gowns singing about fucking witches and werewolves, or seeing just how many notes a guitarist can play in five seconds. Machine Mafia use their instruments in a far more appropriate fashion – they employ them as weapons. Time to hand over to the Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System…
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System awards Machine Mafia 9/10 for an EP that inspires revolutionary thought in Dark Juan’s twisted lump of grey cheese that passes for a mind. Again, this EP would have had 10/10 but I don’t want to appear nepotistic as Jase and Adam are the absolute pinnacle of proper British Industrial music and I am a colossal fan of Machine Mafia, Pound Land and OMNIBDGR. You know what?
Fuck it.
I love this EP so its 10/10 and fuck what anyone else says.
DISCLAIMER: I genuinely do love the music of Machine Mafia. If it was shit, I would cheerfully say so, despite being on good terms with the guys in the band. I’m a critic and reviewer, not a bootlicker. This is why I have no friends. Well, that and the neurodiversity.
TRACKLISTING:
01. F.O.S
02. Tunnel
03. Glistening Beetles
04. Where’s The Money Gone?
LINE-UP:
Adam Stone and Jase Kester – Fiendish bellowing, destruction of electronics, amplified madness and the utter deconstruction of music.
LINKS:
