The Machine Stream Wave Cannon in Full; Out Tomorrow
Rotterdam heavy psych fuzz rockers The Machine will release their seventh album, Wave Cannon (review here), tomorrow, May 12, as their first offering through Sweden’s Majestic Mountain Records. The record, which you can stream in its entirety below if you’d like to skip the blah blah — I’m not offended, go on — offers a couple crucial lessons to be observed.
For me personally, one of those lessons is that mid-Feb. is too early to review a release that’s not coming out until May. Not the only time I’ve been taught this. For everyone else, primarily, Wave Cannon presents The Machine as a veteran outfit, and fair enough for guitarist, vocalist and remaining founder David Eering starting the band in 2007 and this being their first LP without the original lineup — new-ish bassist Chris Both appears for the first time, now-former drummer Davy Boogaard for the last — and it also demonstrates how a band can move back toward their core sound after progressing in other directions without sounding like they’re doing an impression of themselves.
That’s not a minor line to walk, but the highlight of Wave Cannon is the songs as the band hones a matured vision of the organic jamming and structured craft they’ve harnessed all along, including in 2018’s Faceshift (review here), where the balance tipped toward more noise rocking fare and even the desert rocker felt more intense. Five years later, Wave Cannon hasn’t forgotten and doesn’t neglect the pivot that record accomplished, but it does orient The Machine toward flow rather than thrust, though to be perfectly honest with you, this narrative — that they were jammers who went noise rock and now they’re jamming again — is flawed at best.
Not only does it ignore the ongoing forward progression at work in the material, but it’s not like the band stopped being themselves at any point. At most, it was a shift in balance, and it’s a less radical one in hindsight and in the context of Wave Cannon than it seemed at the time.
As regards the band in general and their standing in the European heavy underground, I prefer to think of Wave Cannon as The Machine claiming their place as having spearheaded the post-Colour Haze generation of heavy psych. And most of all, I take it as a signal that The Machine know who they are and who they want to be as a band, and Wave Cannon feels sustainable in the sense that one can hear signature elements that they can continue to evolve for however long they want to keep going. The band’s already hit the 15-year mark. They’re damn-near statesmen at this point, and I don’t think you could objectively call them old. Listening to these tracks, it’s still more about the future than the past.
Since the review happened dumbass-early, Eering was kind enough to give some track-by-track perspective on the material for your perusal while you listen. Once again, the record is out tomorrow on Majestic Mountain.
Please enjoy.
David Eering – ‘Wave Cannon’ Track-by-Track
Reversion
noisreveR. This is a good example of the overall approach on Wave Cannon. It has thick riffs, a nice melody and a more mellow (positive?) vibe without losing an edge. We more or less abandoned (unintentionally) that with the majority of the previous record Faceshift. The last part of the song probably has the most mellow minutes of the entire album. Ha I said (typed) mellow twice now. Wollem. Anyway, not saying we can even come close to the level of brilliance of The Beatles, but I was inspired by some of their melodies while writing the vocal lines for Reversion. I added a 12-string Danelectro, playing along to the verse melody but a bit low in the mix. This gives it a bit of an eastern feel without being overly out there. Didn’t feel like getting my sitar out of its case.
Genau or Never
The instrumental piece on Wave Cannon. It starts with me picking the strings behind the bridge on my Jazzmaster, with a couple of delay pedals engaged and some other guitar technicalities. The push of the rhythm section is something we’d never really done before; the driving bassline offers me the chance to opt for a more minimalistic approach. This will most likely become a regular in our future live sets. Oh and you can dance to it.
Glider
Chords gliding over the guitar neck! Also slightly referencing the guitar technique of Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) here, called glide guitar. The lyrics are very personal and tell a story of the impact of the pandemic; we were in the middle of yet another lockdown while working on this. Our usual rehearsal space had to close because of COVID-regulations, but we found another shared place where we could temporarily do our thing. The lyrics describe our different routine at the time for making coffee. I decided to sing “Grinder” instead of Glider just for the hell of it.
Ride On Crash Kick
I think this is the last song we finished. We’ve been struggling with it for a while, it just wouldn’t work somehow. Changing the tuning eventually proved to be the solution. I started to incorporate another alternate tuning on this record and applying that same open tuning to R.O.C.K. made it click.
Return to Sphere (Kneiter II)
By far the longest track on this one. I’m looking forward to play it live every once in a while. Although obviously different, in my head the vibe and structure of the track has a similarity to Sphere (… or Kneiter) of 2012’s Calmer Than You Are. The ambient middle section is me putting a ballpoint pen underneath my strings, plucking strings and basically engage the majority of the pedals I have on my board. Chris comes in at one point with some ambient rumbling bass swells. There’s definitely some Thurston Moore inspired playing later in this track. Getting the vocals right and fitting was a bit of challenge and I went through like 6 different options but I guess I more or less got it to work eventually.
Wave Cannon
My personal favorite on the album, at least to play. Same alternate tuning as Reversion and R.O.C.K. which instantly gives it an uplifting feel, at least to my ears. You can really lean into this groove and its “hang” as we like to call it. I like the vocal melody in conjunction with the guitar part, they go very well together and are quite complementary while doing different things at the same time. The noisey mayhem at the end is just plain fun. Which should be the main reason for this band thing right?
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Produced, mixed & engineered by David Eering
Digital & vinyl mastering by Pieter Kloos
Written & performed by David Eering, Chris Both and Davy Boogaard
The Machine on ‘Wave Cannon’:
David Eering – guitar/vocals
Chris Both – bass
Davy Boogaard – drums
The Machine:
David Eering – guitar/vocals
Chris Both – bass
Klaas Dijkstra – drums
The Machine, “Wave Cannon” official video
The Machine, “Reversion” official video
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Tags: Majestic Mountain Records, Rotterdam, The Machine, The Machine Wave Cannon, The Netherlands, Wave Cannon
