January 2025 Feature Release - The Sphere Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month's feature release for The Sphere, nominated by me (Shadowdoom9 (Andi)), is the 2005 debut by Illinois-based cyber metal band Mechina, The Assembly of Tyrants. Although the band is known for their epic symphonic cyber metal sound and expanding conceptual saga throughout albums and singles, I actually love the debut slightly better than the next 4 albums. This simple raw style of cyber metal in a similar vein as Fear Factory and Sybreed is unlike their bombastic later material, and it's the best place to start for anyone in Metal Academy who wants to hear this band for the first time.

https://metal.academy/releases/5340

Here's my review summary:

The Assembly of Tyrants was recorded and released in 2005, over 5 years before their second album Conqueror in which they started making their sound more cinematic and forming a massive story in the lyrics. Although the saga was yet to be established, I can hear the story quite well in these lyrics! With some of the heaviest bits of Fear Factory present in their influences, as early as that band's deathly debut Soul of a New Machine, they can sound killer at a time before adding a bombastic truckload of symphonics and female vocals to their subsequent releases. Half the amount of the songs in the debut were re-recorded two years after in the EP Tyrannical Resurrection. As for the other half, two of the tracks are from the band's two earlier demos that are basically the Fear Factory Concrete of Mechina, two more are ambient electronic instrumentals, and the final track is an instrumental remix. The Assembly of Tyrants is essential cyber/industrial metal that anyone in The Sphere should get. Though if this dark futuristic sound had guitar solos and better production, it would've been 5-star perfection. Still it already displays Mechina's unique abilities. The best place to start before the bombastic rest!

4.5/5

Recommended tracks: "Shattered Cry", "Reclamation of Mortal Nature", "Clash of Cultures", "Skin Deep", "The Assembly of Tyrants"

For fans of: 90s Fear Factory, Sybreed, The Amenta

So, it appears that this is Mechina's debut album, released in 2005, a year after the band formed. I understand that they later went down a more symphonic path with their industrial sound, but here they have gone for straight-up classic Nineties-era Fear Factory worship. The riffs are decent with a meaty guitar tone FF fans will feel comfortably at home with, although I don't think Mechina's riffs have the same high memorability factor as the LA legends achieved on their best material. Where they do score well though is when they use synths to add an additional, thin layer to their sound, such as during "Afterimage" or on the title track. "War Fog", which connects the two tracks, is a short, synth-driven interlude which is also quite evocative and further illustrates the band's nascent atmosphere-building prowess. Vocalist David Holch also has a creditable crack at reproducing Burton C. Bell's growling bark as the main vocal, but where he comes unstuck is with the complementary clean vocals which, in all honesty, sound terrible, as if he can't carry a tune at all. They are so bad that I can't believe no one advised the band to re-record them or get a guest in to help out.

Ultimately, for me, this is an enjoyable enough slab of Fear Factory worship, irreparably tainted by very poor clean vocals, that I am unlikely to turn to in the future unless the FF back catalogue suddenly disappears from the face of the Earth.

3/5

Vocalist David Holch also has a creditable crack at reproducing Burton C. Bell's growling bark as the main vocal, but where he comes unstuck is with the complementary clean vocals which, in all honesty, sound terrible, as if he can't carry a tune at all. They are so bad that I can't believe no one advised the band to re-record them or get a guest in to help out.

The Tyrannical Resurrection EP recorded two years later has half the amount of songs in the debut re-recorded, but as much as I enjoy The Assembly of Tyrants, I agree that the band should re-record the album entirely (except for the "Clash" remix) with their later vocalist Mel Rose singing the cleans. That can be like a special 20th anniversary thing later this year, which I guess depends on if they get at least a smidge more success out of their new album Bellum Interruptum to be released two months from now.