Since their 2006 release Ten Silver Drops, The Secret Machines have gone through a thorough process of renewal. They’ve dropped the major label, their softer atmospheric ’80s-dream pop fusion sound and, incidentally, their guitarist and co-founder Ben Curtis (who in early 2007, left to focus on his then-side project, School of Seven Bells). In the process, vocalist/bassist/keyboardist Brandon Curtis and drummer Josh Garza marched on, recruiting ex-Tripping Daisy member Phil Karnats to fill in for Ben.
In some respects, this new self-titled release restores the aggression, musical innovation and lyrical profundity for which the band was praised in their earliest albums. Ten Silver Drops saw the band replace Garza’s simple, earth-shattering beats with toned down, conventional drum patterns and trade in their former poetic lyrical abstraction for songs explicitly about heartache and breakups. Though at times musically engaging, the album was a step back from their previous achievements — something it seems they kept in mind when putting Secret Machines together.
The new album kicks off with one of the most radio-friendly tunes the band has ever churned out. With a basic verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus model and a running time of less than four minutes, “Atomic Heels” communicates right off the bat that TSM have some changes to offer. But the change in structure means no deviation from the musical style, and despite the intro bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Miami Vice theme, this track ends up as one of the album’s strongest points. The refreshingly explosive beat, catchy melody and aggressive, electro-fuzz guitar riffs guarantee that all listeners will be tapping their feet and humming the chorus by the last time it rolls around.
After “Atomic Heels,” however, the album begins to steadily wane with a string of decent but not all too memorable tracks. The album reaches its lowest point around “Underneath the Concrete,” an ’80s pop-reminiscent tune that is ultimately irritating, if not embarrassing. And once you get to the slower, uninspired ballads placed across the album, you might actually think you’ve popped Ten Silver Drops into the CD player by mistake.
However, just as you might be inclined to press eject, the album hits its second wind with the six-minute mini-epic (or perhaps epyllion?), “The Walls are Starting to Crack” — a track that marks new and interesting musical territory trodden by the band, boasting an experimental section of industrial-space rock resembling a sonic fist-fight between Nine Inch Nails and Spiritualized… only to be shattered by three signature Garza drum crashes and explode into Karnats’ wailing guitars and a Floydian gospel choir. This serves as a clear nod to musical studies of neurosis, isolation and inner-anguish such as “Us and Them” and “Brain Damage.”
Bringing the album to a close is the sprawling, 11-minute “The Fire is Waiting,” opening with throbbing drums, cymbal crashes and an explosively menacing guitar line consistent throughout the track. And by the time you reach the haunting coda featuring Brandon and Karnats howling over the swooshing synths and crashing drums, you know for sure that these kids do, in fact, still know how to rage.
