Machines of Loving Grace - Gilt

As should be completely obvious by now, i have a deep and complex love of listening to recorded music. Even music i subjectively hate (like say, Country) has a right to exist, if only so that i can actively hate it while saying "you're more than welcome to love it." But, like everyone else, i have a favorite type of music and it's industrial rock from the early to mid 90s. You've all heard of NIN, Marilyn Manson, and Rob Zombie, but they are very much the Brad Pitt, or Leonardo DiCaprio of their genre. Nothing wrong with them, perfectly appealing, boring old superstars whose albums are actually hit or miss because being palatable (for a given value of palatable) was more important them.

I want the real meat of the genre, the lifestyle bands who managed to eke out their own lasting successes. Ministry, KMFDM, Die Krupps, Gravity Kills, Stabbing Westward, Sister Machine Gun, Skinny Puppy, early Thrill Kill Kult, Front Line Assembly, and tonight's selection Machines of Loving Grace. They are, in my opinion, the Dead Hot Workshop of industrial rock (and by complete coincidence also from Arizona).

Gilt is their second album, and my favorite. The standout song is obviously Golgotha Tenement Blues (a single written specifically for The Crow soundtrack), but the whole album is worth your attention. On the scale of Rock to Noise, Machines of Loving Grace is about as far to the rock band side as you can get (not surprising at all if you know the actual poem), but boy howdy are they cathartically depressing.

The more discerning amongst you will surely notice a very familiar drum sound throughout this album (especially in the toms on some of the deeper cuts), and i'll save you some mental agony and just tell you its Sylvia Massey (one of the very very very few female producers in rock), who also produced Tool's Opiate and Undertow, Green Jellö, and anybody who passed through Sound City's Studio B in the mid to late 90s, like Paula Abdul or Sheryl Crowe. She didn't just walk into a top tier studio like a lot of producers, if she produced your album she used her personal equipment, samples, and tricks. Her sound is f-ing amazing and i think she's as good as Albini, and leaps and bounds better than any of the Lord-Alge brothers.

Anywho, if you haven't indulged me up to now please consider doing so with this album. It really is one of my favorite from top to bottom, and a pretty good starting point for getting into the strange marriage of hard rock and dark EDM that is second generation Industrial.

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