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ACTION OVER DRIVE :
MACHINE

Personally, I would never have thought to mix elements of Stoner-Metal and Nu-Metal into one project. Well, I guess it was just a matter of time before someone got around to it. Every other Metal sub genre on the planet has been mashed together at some point. Well, the new power trio, from Montreal Quebec, known as Action Over Drive has delivered just such a CD. "Machine" sounds like a cross between early Deftones (think "Adrenaline") and any post Kyuss Stoner band you wanna pull out of your ass... let's say... Fu Manchu. The results of this cross over genre mixing are varied. It's moderately heavy, you have your fat bass tones and bottom end from the Stoner side, and the odd time changes, and a clean/harsh spoken/shouted vocal delivery from the Nu side of things. Overall, on the plus side, this disc is going to go over well in a crowd. If you have a house party full of hard music lovers, but you have lots of fans of various genres, "Machine" should keep anyone from complaining about the tunes, and help keep your bash going until the wee hours. This used to always happen to me, and would drive me up the fuckin' wall. Nothing is worse than having one small faction at the party bitching about the music being too heavy, or too Punk, or too slow, too fast, too old, too new, too Metal, etc. I swear, sometimes you just wanna play nothin' but Carcass all night and shut everyone the hell up! But I digress... On the other hand, Machine fails to have the impact that a "pure" Stoner album should, nor does it have the instant dumb-but-fun impact that a well-done Nu-Metal disc should be able to muster. At times I am reminded of Metallica's latest fiasco, "St. Anger". Not that this is anywhere near as bad, but there are times when the frantic pounding seems directionless, and doesn't culminate in the sonic payoff you were looking for. However, I think the boys (Eric Frendas - bass, Rick Devault - guitar/vocals, and JS Gareau - drums) are onto something. Machine is a good first step, and these guys are still new, hell, they just formed in 2001, and got this disc out in less than 2 years. I know bands that take 2 years just to choose a name! So, even though I don't think this one is their masterpiece, I think a release or two down the line, they might just produce such a disc. Keep your eye out. For more info on the band, you can find them at actionoverdrive.com.
RATING = 6 Nu-Metal with a Stoner vibe (Released 2003)

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