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Good review. Though I do somewhat disagree with what you said about TMTC being less mainstream sounding than BME. It does have considerably cleaner production. And Flynn uses his clean vocals a little more here - not to mention the fact that most of the songs trade in the aggression and machismo of BME in favor a heavier and more emotional style of groove/thrash metal. It did also show some very subtle hints of the more nu-metalish direction MH would take on The Burning Red with the second half of Struck A Nerve, where Rob Flynn actually did a little semi-rapping (that's not a knock against the song, btw. Just an observation).

Great album, either way. I'd say I like it equivalently to BME. Just in a different way.

I don't feel that there's any real musical link between The More Things Change and The Burning Red. Flynn has already admitted that The Burning Red and Supercharger were the results of him and the band bowing to label pressure to go mainstream. I applaud him for admitting that, too. Those two albums are kind of out in left field in the Machine Head discography. Some songs from The Burning Red and Supercharger probably could have fit on their other albums, but I really don't feel like any of them would seamlessly fit. They'd be songs that would stand out as being different from the rest.

Either way, The More Things Change is extremely underrated. It's a crushing album of modern metal/post-thrash groove (or whatever you want to call it).

same here.

i have this album and frankly i don't like it at all. some songs sound more like giant intros than, you know, actual songs, and i think MH are at their best when they're thrashing.

i'm a big fan of Flynn's vocals, though, both clean and rough.

Have you heard The Blackening yet?

what does that have to do with this? i'm talking about TMTC.

all i've heard from The Blackening is the 2 songs you posted, and they're both excellent. i'm not a fan of long intros/endings but i already know you disagree with me on that (you said something about foreplay, sex and cuddling ).

Perhaps it's because I got into BME almost instantly whereas this one took me a while that I've always experienced BME as the more 'mainstream' of the two. I've just always felt BME had more hooks.

I've also always felt that the production on this one had a slightly more 'muddy' feel than BME.

You are probably correct about the songs being less hook-heavy and ultimately more complex on this album than they were on BME (and, thus, a little more difficult to get into). I'll give you that. But I thought the production on this album was considerably clearer and had less grit than on BME. Again, I stress this album's heavier sound compared to BME's more thrashy sound.

Actually, now that I think of it, in your review you left out my two favorite songs on this album (The Frontlines and Spine). Spine, in particular, is notable for its cool guitar solo.

Well, then, fuck off, or something. Sheesh.

what the fuck? are you joking again Kenneth?

anyway from the samples i'm really looking forward to The Blackening.

Always.

I never tend to do a song by song analysis now, just pick out particular highlights / low points as I know many people get bored with the song by song thing and to be honest it's not much fun to write. I did mention Spine as one of the thrashier numbers, although I'm not as enamoured with it as you. Pretty much the same with Frontlines. Both decent tracks but not the highlights of the album for me.

Moderate follow-up after a rather good debut.

One of those CD's in my collection that never gets played and should be sold through Ebay, but never will because of my stupid habit to collect metal albums even if they're really bad.

Good cd but way behind debut Chris Kontos's (I think that's how it's spelt) drumming is amazing on that album he has such a great feel the rest of the band are great also but being a drummer I'm biased. His replacement was good but Chris was a big loss.