My buddies at Quite Great PR know what I like. Occasionally they send me stuff to check out. The latest being the debut album from a Russian band by the name of Mechanical Man.
I’ve spent a few days with it and am happy to report it is a fine slab of heavy/progressive rock. Think somewhere in the Rush, DT, Symphony X territory. Very nice indeed.
Mechanical Man have put together here a very fine debut album. It has plenty of depth, aggression, melody and finesse to boot. The heavy parts are meaty enough. The chords and deft guitar work all fit together very well with everything else.
The keys and synth are nicely to the fore in all the right places and mesh well when interplaying with the guitars. Add to that the distinctive vocals and it is a rollocking time which reveals more about itself with each listen.
Take the title track. Rather Rush-esque in style with the riff it’s an attention grabbing start which moves along even better when the keys come in. A swirling monster of a song. Progtastic.
Here’s an example. The band performing Madhouse last year when supporting Dream Theatre in Minsk.
The whole album is spot on. Nothing not to like. Mechanical Man can do the slower more melodic soulful stuff when they want to also without losing any of the power prog.
Kept to eight songs the album is just about the right length to allow the songs to retain that punchy hard feel without room for any unnecessary straying in to overblown territory. I like that about it.
That said, Mechanical Man do obey the unwritten rule of any good progressive/metal album. That being the closing track epic. We have one here in the shape (I mean sound) of Frankenstein. Around nine minutes of proper muscular work swirling around in a mixture of excellence which hits all the right buttons repeatedly. They keys/synths in particular giving an atmospheric feeling to undertow the bombast.
It is February 2016 as I write this review. The album has been out just a couple or three weeks or so. In my opinion in Mechanical Man we already have an early contender for the progressive metal album of the year. Oh yes. A very hearty double thumbs-up indeed.
>> CHECK OUT MECHANICAL MAN’S DEBUT ALBUM ON AMAZON <<
Band links:
http://mechanicalmanband.com
https://www.facebook.com/mechanicalmanband