The Secret Machines

“You know, I’m sick of coming up with quotes for bands no one cares about. I think I’ll let our country’s fine leader come up with one for me.” – Me

“Don’t mess with Texas!” – Cletus W. Retard

“Good job! Here’s a cookie.” – Me

“Also, Geddy Lee’s voice sucks.” – Cletus W. Retard

Albums Reviewed:

Now Here Is Nowhere

Ten Silver Drops

Secret Machines

The Secret Machines are a really, really good (though not as really, really good as I thought a year or so ago) band from Dallas that mix up a lot of bands I really like (Led Zeppelin, Flaming Lips, Pink Floyd) into a lovely, frothy mixtures I go into more detail about in the reviews below. In the picture above are, from left to right, keyboardist/bassist/vocalist Brandon Curtis, guitarist/vocalist Ben Curtis (his brother), and drummer Josh Garza, who sounds just like the Flaming Lips drummer guy a lot of the time (which is good). Also, I probably got the Curtis brothers mixed up. And never mind the shortness of this intro. I’m just lazy. They’re real good, and you should all get their debut Now Here Is Nowhere right now, considering it’s one of the best albums from a new band I’ve heard the last few years.

And, onto the reviews!

Now Here Is Nowhere (2004)

Rating: 9

Best Song: “First Wave Intact”

OK, first off, how the heck is this band from Texas? That’s almost as unbelievable as the Flaming Lips’ being from Oklahoma City! Hell, it’s even more so, because the Lips have that completely fucked-up, drug-ravaged charm of theirs, the kind that could only come from a band from a really random place. But how the fuck does Texas produce this band? As a closed-minded, provincial Northeastern liberal, it may be true that I automatically associate Texas with horrendous, jingoistic Darryl Worley country ass music…but since I’ve never been to Texas, I’m gonna go ahead and assume that my obviously prejudiced characterization is true, which therefore makes a band this psychedelic and seemingly urbane’s coming from (Don’t Mess With) Texas all the more astounding.

Anyway, the Secret Machines consist of three more-or-less regular looking dudes with floppy hair, brothers Ben (guitar, vocals) and Brandon Curtis (bass, keyboards, also vocals) and drummer Josh Garza, and besides being from Texas, they are also very, very good. I wouldn’t call them all that original, and the admittedly very high rating up there is probably more due to my personal taste in music and love for this band’s influences more than anything, but, goshdarnit, they’re really, really good! If you took sounds of Pink Floyd, the Flaming Lips, and Radiohead, tossed in some heavy guitar yumminess reminiscent of classic Zeppelin-y 70’s hard rock, added a heavy dash of German Krautrock repetition, and threw it all into a blender, you’d have a really shitty-tasting milkshake. Or, failing that, you’d have the Secret Machines. Their sound is at once unique and heavily indebted to all their influences, starting with Steven Drozd-soundalike drummer Garza and the massive, loud organic backbeat he gives these songs. The Krautrock comes in with the repetitive nature of the grooves he works up...listen to “First Wave Intact” or “Sad and Lonely” and marvel at how, while the songs develop and morph and change, the drums never stop hammering away at the same thing. It’s not “rocking” or “groovy” as much as it’s hypnotic, and it’s extremely powerful in its own way. On top of the drums, then, the Curtis brothers toss layers upon layers of guitars sent through effects boxes and pedals until they end up sounding like keyboards and keyboards sent through effects boxes and pedals until they end up sounding like something off a Pink Floyd or Radiohead record. If this sounds disturbingly like what the Flaming Lips do, you’re partially right (they’re obviously the biggest influence on these guys), but the difference between the Lips and these guys is in tone. Whereas the Lips are like happy poppy fairytales on acid, the Secret Machines create a darker, more mysterious vibe through their sound effects that owes a heavy debt to Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, etc. If you know me, then clearly this is something I’m going to like.

Oh, but I’m not gonna back down from that 9. When this band lets loose the drums and rocks, they are almost uniformly unstoppable, creating pieces of rock music that are both powerful like Led Zeppelin and spacey like Pink Floyd or the Lips (though, obviously, not up to the peak of any of those bands’ work). The nine-minute opener, “First Wave Intact,” for instance, just kicks all sorts of ass, sprinkling Garza’s powerful bottom with numerous and interesting splotches of guitar and keyboard color and building to a powerful climax at the end. “Nowhere Again,” “Sad and Lonely,” and “The Road Leads Where it’s Led,” which by now have all been released as singles (not that they’ve gotten tons of airplay…what, these guys not “emo” enough?) are all examples of this kind of dark, spacey, powerful vibe filtered through simply excellent pop songwriting. “Sad and Lonely” starts off with a total classic 70’s studio-manipulated guitar entrance before Steven Drozd’s long-lost brother breaks in and proceeds to absolutely own the song, while “Nowhere Again” and “The Road Leads Where it’s Led” provide slightly lighter examples of what this band can do with repetition, groove, treated guitars, and spacey keyboard effects. “The Road Leads Where it’s Led” is especially hypnotic, with circling, bubbling keyboards and a creepy “blowing all the other kids away…” refrain. And while “Light’s On” may not be all that great shakes, it’s 100 times better than anything on Weezer’s new album. Which sucks. Sucks ass.

Amidst all this spacey psychedelia and hypnotic, Krautrock-ish tempos, the band even finds the time to soften up and toss in a few ballads which, although clearly not as good as their absolutely nasty rockers, do provide a nice change of pace when they occur (sequencing!). “Leaves are Gone” is melodically uneventful and unfortunately has no input from Garza whatsoever, but its keyboard background, interestingly, sounds a whole fuckload like Radiohead’s “Treefingers” from Kid A. Weird, huh? “Pharaoh’s Daughter” sounds like Radiohead or Pink Floyd playing lounge music with John Bonham on drums, and “You Are Chains,” while admittedly boring me for its first half, redeems itself with a sick drum entrance and fantastically energetic ending. Finally, the nine-minute closing title track rehashes “Nowhere Again” in a way that probably should piss me off, but they add enough new little touches and effects that it’s OK.

This band is very, very good. Besides their obvious ability to write a good song, on this record they show skills at production, sequencing, and soundscaping that a really young band making its debut album really shouldn’t have (unless, ofcourse, their producer did all that great shit for them…never know). They’re not the most original band in the world, and anyone thoroughly familiar with Pink Floyd, Radiohead, and the Flaming Lips will have fun playing “spot the influence” throughout this thing, but, dammit, it’s just so well-done and well-made. I am impressed. Very impressed.

Ten Silver Drops (2006)

Rating: 8

Best Song: “All At Once (It’s Not Important)”

Not as strong as their astoundingly good debut (seriously, how many other debuts in the last few years have I given a 9 to? None! That is one fucking GREAT album), but still better than most of the big name new albums I’ve had the pleasure of being exposed to this year (and that counts Pearl Jam and Tool, for those of you eagerly awaiting those reviews with cries of “Fuck! Another Bob Dylan album! Fuck!”). Due to the fact that the most obviously awesome aspect of their debut (Josh Garza’s Hammer of the Gods drum patters) have been mostly excised (which sucks and made me think the album wasn’t all that hot when I first heard it), I’m tempted to call it a sophomore slump, but how can I give a sophomore slump to an 8? To an album that takes that massively overrated Arctic Monkeys band out behind a shed and makes it its bitch? Not cool. This is a really good album. Not a great one like their first, but really good, and I’m gonna keep pimping this band to everyone I meet until they become as big as the goddamn fucking Arctic Monkeys or Killers or whoever. Maybe they should start using fake British accents and ripping off Franz Ferdinand. Maybe that’d do the trick.

I don’t know where that bitterness came from, I’m sorry. I should be happy! I’m only a few weeks from leaving the cultural morass that is Long Island behind forever, then a month after that I’m moving to LA! LA! For instance, today has been the 2^nd nice day we’ve had here since, what, October? September? It’s like this in LA EVERY DAY! I’m excited. And even though they’ve slipped a little bit from their debut, I remain excited about this band. They’re still adding endlessly processed guitars and keyboards and hypnotic (almost feminine) vocals to the insistent backbeat of that drummer of theirs. It’s just that, for some reason, they don’t push his drums as high in this mix this time, so it sounds more like a normal band instead of an unholy and strangely danceable alliance of the Flaming Lips, Led Zeppelin, and Can. Remember how the last album had 4, 5 songs on there that absolutely owned anything else released the last two or three years? Yeah, this album doesn’t have that. But remember how the last one also had a bunch of over-atmospheric percussion-less ballads, as well as an 8-minute, uber-pointless remix of one of their singles tacked onto the end? This album doesn’t have that, either! So it’s more consistent, let’s say. There’s not a song here I would obviously say doesn’t fit or has to go like that remix, and there’s no song in which Garza isn’t involved, which is obviously a good thing. Ofcourse, he actually changes his drum figures from time to time during the song this time, which I don’t agree with much at all, and which makes this record lack that “hypnotic” character the last one had. Ofcourse, this one has a greener album cover.

The only song that sounds a lot like Now Here is Nowhere is the lengthy workout “Daddy’s in the Doldrums,” which at times tries to conjure up that “First Wave Intact” vibe, but doesn’t do it quite so successfully. I guess it goes without saying that the slow, plodding, wannabe-hypnotic song on the album doesn’t nail it quite as well when the qualities that made its analogue so massive are gone. Garza comes closest to his hypnotic, hammering, Krautrock-meets-Steven-Drozd self here, but it’s just not the same. That’s not to say that song’s not any good, though. Far from it! Actually a really good little tune, and the treated guitar entrances at the end are especially ace. It’s just not the same, you know? It’s gone from “WOW!” to “hey, pretty good!” The best songs this time are actually the poppier ones. I for one love “All at Once (It’s Not Important)” and its repeated chants of “it don’t meeeaaaan much!” for instance, and “Alone, Jealous and Stoned” is another winner. I really don’t think these songs are written any worse than the best tracks on Now Here is Nowhere (except “First Wave Intact,” which is duplicated nowhere on this). I just think the production lacks that little extra oomph that pushed the last record into the “wow, this is fucking GREAT!” stratosphere. The second half of the album, for instance, despite being full of real good songs and strong production, well, it sounds a little tired. I feel like I’ve heard “I Hate Pretending” and “Faded Lines” before, for instance. Is it a bad sign when a band sounds old halfway through their second album? And is it a bad sign when two ballads tacked onto the end of a formerly ass-kicking band’s second album are two of its best songs? Seriously! “I Want to Know if it’s Still Possible” and “1,000 Seconds” have no analogues whatsoever on Now Here is Nowhere. They’re almost power ballads! Piano based, slow, and with predictable percussion, but very well-constructed and full of the Secret Machines’ familiar tricks and whatnot. I especially enjoy the closer “1,000 Seconds.” It’s a total lighter song. Total fucking lighter song. But it might be my 2^nd favorite song on the record, and it’s certainly the best on side 2.

So I suppose I should hedge my bets on this band. I remain very excited by their talent and production acumen, but if they’re gonna rely on shorter, poppier material and lighter-waving ballads in the future, they may have issues. They need to get back to what made the best half of Now Here is Nowhere some of the best music I’ve heard in the last couple years. Like I’ve said before, it’s not like these guys are all that original, so to achieve that extra-high level of quality they need to kick some ass and take some names. Let’s hope they return to that next time. This album’s still really good, though.

Secret Machines (2009)

Rating: 7

Best Song: “Atomic Heels”

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment at which I stopped caring about the Secret Machines. It’s not like my tastes have changed, and it’s certainly not like their music has changed (though maybe that has something to do with it). Maybe it was after I had some distance separating me from their (in hindsight) somewhat disappointing second album. Don’t get me wrong, I still like it and I stand by the 8 I’ve given to it – it’s just that it was such a holding pattern for the band. This isn’t a horrible thing in itself, of course – Radiohead could get themselves stuck in a holding pattern for the next fifteen years and I’d be A-OK with it (Hell, they already sort of are, aren’t they?). It’s that the second album did exactly what the first album did, only it wasn’t as unique or interesting. I know I implied in the previous review that it wasn’t that big a deal that Garza’s drums weren’t as loud in the mix as before, but the more I reflect on it, the bigger of a deal it is. The reason I sank my teeth into this band so unabashedly when they first came out was that they had this HUGE, MASSIVE Steven Drozd-on-steroids hammer of the gods backbeat that made them stand out among all the other bands that try to be slow and artistic and hypnotic and use funky guitar sounds and stuff. They also wrote great songs to go with that backbeat, but would I have dug them as much if they didn’t have it? Probably not, no. And then the second album didn’t have it, and to be honest with you I can’t even remember how three quarters of that album goes, whereas I can look at the track listing for the first one and still remember everything. That’s not a good thing, obviously.

And so it goes with the uncreatively titled third album. The guitar sounds and general atmosphere and style are back and almost defiantly unchanged from the previous album, and for some reason it seems that Garza has been pushed even farther down in the mix than before. This may be because the band are going for extended, moodier tracks that amp up the effects and noise and amp down the snappiness that made the hammer of the gods backbeat on the first album both noticed and relevant, and thus maybe I don’t notice Garza as much, but if this is the case, isn’t that a problem in itself? And isn’t that problem actually bigger than the whole “How loudly is Garza mixed” issue? The Secret Machines have begun to meander, my friends, and I can safely say I don’t like it. The lead track and single “Atomic Heels” recalls the triumphs of the still-fantastic first album in its snappy, tight melody and interesting guitar textures used in snappy, tight ways to augment said snappy, tight melody, but…dammit…where’s Garza? I really dig the song and all, but this is the kind of thing Garza would have owned on the first album with a backbeat that bled your eardrums and never changed once. He’s drumming like a normal drummer on this song! What the hell? Maybe someone told him that to be taken seriously as a drummer he needed to actually do more than one thing in a song and have, you know, “fills,” but no! Not in the Secret Machines! Take this intriguing pop song and add a Flaming Lips-morphed-with-Can drumbeat to it, man. That’s what the Secret Machines do! That’s what makes them so hypnotic! Or did for one album! I see that you do plenty of this “continue to hammer home one backbeat until it’s ingrained in your head” thing on a number of the following tracks, but the problem is that much of this backbeat-ing is a) accompanied by a lot of admittedly cool sound effects that don’t seem to me to want to go anywhere nearly as interesting as “First Wave Intact” and b) not mixed loud enough!! And so we return to our original problem: Garza needs to have his drum track turned the fuck up.

I’ve been excessively negative for an album that I gave a 7 to. This is because, until we get to the far too long and completely directionless closing track “The Fire is Waiting,” this album is actually absurdly listenable and often quite good. The voice of whichever of the Curtis brothers does the singing (I forget at this point…christ, when did I stop caring about this band?) still sounds as fantastic as ever, the sounds and riffs and lines are interesting and well-thought-out, and there are lots of solid melodies strewn around. If I hadn’t heard anything from this band before, I’d probably sit here extolling how much better they are than the fucking goddamn Killers and how I’m sure they’d be the next big thing if they ever focused a little bit and stopped meandering around so much in their tracks and came up with something like…oh, I don’t know…their first album! The extendo-tracks on this album are all nice and have decidedly cool moments (except “The Fire is Waiting”), but put any of them up against the massive piece of work that is “First Wave Intact” and the band just sounds like they’re doddering around. It’s not close. I like this album. I really do. But these guys are on a steady downward slope in quality and, considering how completely unable they seem to be to change their sound at all, I don’t see them rebounding any time soon. And so another promising young band does not become the Next Big Awesome, and Radiohead continues to stand atop that mountain with no one able to see them even with the best pair of binoculars money can buy. It’s here that I’d cite System of a Down as the exception if they a) hadn’t apparently broken up and b) weren’t metal, and thus an entirely different animal altogether. Sorry Matthew.

Anyway, you can go ahead and get this album if you want (it’s good), but don’t feel that you have to. Just please get Now Here is Nowhere. That album still owns, and if these guys can’t stop their steady downward trajectory it may be the only evidence left someday that one day they did own. And that would be sad.

FUCK! In getting the cover image for this album, I discovered that one of Curtis brothers left and was replaced by someone named Phil Karnats! This changes nothing about the above review, except that I apparently really don’t care about this band now.

It don't mean much!