GRAND DELUSION – Supreme Machine

Thick riffs saturate Swedish band Grand Delusion’s Supreme Machine, a thirty-nine minute slab of Stoner-inflected Metal. Those low, bass-driven riffs are easily accessible; whereas the vocal styles on Supreme Machine take a little getting used to. On first listen they sound strained, and in many places, such as on the chorus of four-minute opener “Just Revolution”, the vocals-by-committee technique initially comes across as haphazard. On repeated listens, when the lyrical content begins to sink in, those same collective vocals end up being as equally engaging as the music—listeners will be singing (or shouting) along to the chorus of “Just Revolution” the second time through. “Mangrove Blues” kicks off with a similarly heavy fat guitar and bass groove and delivers the best lyric of the album: “There’s work to be done/for a place in the sun”.

The length of the album and individual songs is a factor that helps Supreme Machine stand apart from a lot of Stoner Rock, where there’s a tendency for songs to spill out into interminable lengths. There’s one epic exception — the ever-shifting sound maze “Trail Of The Seven Scorpions” — but everything else other than “Infinite” is under six minutes, and the relative brevity of the tracks avoids the common Stoner pitfall of the songs blurring out into one long song.

There’s enough variety in the time signatures, techniques and styles employed on the album to make Supreme Machine an exciting album, and the music itself is strong enough to allow some leeway where the vocals are concerned. Supreme Machine is a sure hit with fans of bands like Wo Fat and Grand Magus.

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