Style: Progressive metal, progressive thrash metal, progressive death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Death, Horrendous, Coroner, badly acted spoken word
Country: Florida, United States
Release date: 12 January, 2024
There will never be another band like Nevermore. Little shredder Zach wanted to be just like Jeff Loomis when he grew up, and seven years later, I’m still nowhere close. But it wasn’t just Loomis’s killer left hand that made the band so special, it was also the melodrama of the late, great Warrel Dane. Nevermore brought the theatrical drama of power metal and thrashy instrumentation together in a megaton explosion that propelled my brain in the direction of “more drama, better album.”
A band with the name Announce the Apocalypse is the last band I’d expect to add some dramatic flair into their work, but here we are. Experience Machine is a concept album of the verbose kind, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination with ‘After the Plague’ talking about mass inoculation and the banning of AR-15s (that’s a gun for all you non-freedom havers). With that over and done with, we’re treated to the core sound of AtA. A thrashy blend equal parts Horrendous and Coroner, with Dominic Ryan Gabriel’s razor-sharp vocals very reminiscent of Damien Herring’s lower register.
‘State of Nihilism’ did nothing to wow me, but it did nothing to insult me either, at least initially. There are nice riffs that overstay their welcome a little, and the song feels much longer than its five minute runtime, but the cheesy spoken word at the end is where this album devolves into true nonsense. AtA decided, for some godforsaken reason, to put on an amateur high school production within their metal album. With our protagonist proclaiming “Fuck you! Fuck you too!” to his audience, I could only roll my eyes as ‘In the Wake’ started off with more cheesy acted sections.
Frankly, these only last a few seconds, and if it was just once, I’d shrug and move on. But every song begins with one of these. It completely kills any momentum this album has, and makes for some especially cringeworthy moments in the next song. In ‘Dying Words’, our protagonist’s lover shoots herself for some reason, complete with stock gunsound3.wav to ensure the point’s been driven through. Not only is this moment unintentionally hilarious, but I had to ask myself why this was the only time this album evoked an emotion that wasn’t complete boredom.
We’re treated to Horrendous does Type O Negative on the aforementioned song, and to the band’s credit, it’s a nice change of pace. Without the silly intro and the god-awful lyricism (which I can easily ignore), I could see myself semi-enjoying this. It goes on for too long, and repeats too many sections, but at this point in the album I’m used to all this.
Interlude ‘At the Burial’ proves to me that this band is competent enough in their instruments, as the song is pretty enough on its own. But as is a running trend with mediocre prog bands, they can’t seem to structure a song to save their life. Don’t worry though, they stack another interlude on after that, complete with a whole song of terribly acted dialogue!
The album’s title track is where my attention started waning, and the song wouldn’t be complete without mechanicalnoise6.mp3 playing and ruining a good section they had going. The point I’m trying to make here is that everything about this album is silly. This album’s concept is just The Matrix if it were dreamed up by an especially angry high schooler, and that’s the best pitch I can give Experience Machine.
Experience Machine, as a whole, isn’t a bad album. It’s a lukewarm one. So many of these songs need tightening up, and the acted sections just need to go. There are moments that made me raise my brow in a bit of excitement, like the fretless bass on ‘Return to a Broken Reality’, but they go absolutely nowhere with it. With a nudge in the right direction, these guys could be doing great things in a few years. For now, they’re losing a whole point for the melodrama. Leave it to Nevermore, guys.
Recommended tracks: Return to a Broken Reality
You may also like: Quasarborn
Final verdict: 4/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Announce the Apocalypse is:
– Dominic Ryan Gabriel (vocals)
– Shawn Loureiro (bass)
– Adrian Baptist (drums)
– Kelly Barnes (guitars)
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