Record Review: Modern Machines - Take It, Somebody!

There’s a certain manner in which you have to approach a Modern Machines album. You have to give it some time to become ingrained in your brain. Let it ferment in your cranium. After a month or two of repeat listens, the veiled melodies will reveal themselves, attach themselves to subconscious. Before long, listening to one of their LPs, and ‘Take It, Somebody’ is no exception, the songs will feel inherent. Like something you listened to as a child, long repressed in your memory. You’ll find yourself reflexively mouthing the chorus to ‘Why I Be Leavin’’, air strumming the opening chords to ‘Flash Infatuation’. It’s a special feat, almost intangible, impossible to premeditate.

The Modern Machines’ riffy take on Midwestern punk is instilled with crude backing vocals and laden with melody. Equally inspired by Toys That Kill and traditional country music, ‘Take It, Somebody!’ is equal parts buzzsaw energy and harmonized shitkicker twang.

Opening with an ominous harmonica bellow, ‘Take It, Somebody’ is earthier than their previous LPs. It still exhibits the same levels of lively melody and coarse production, but ‘Get It Right’, ‘You’re Getting Married’ and ‘Cause I Do’ ratchet the tempo down a notch.

But the record goes through a series of peaks and troughs. Where the aforementioned tracks expose a contemplative, melancholy underbelly, ‘Flash Infatuation’, ‘Elegy For Love’ and ‘(Can’t Let You) Slip Through My Hands’ will have you running up walls in a cacophonous frenzy.

While not a faultless record, or even of the same calibre of their outstanding debut ‘Thwap!’, it does bode well for the future. This sentiment is substantiated by their move to the more fertile pastures of Dirtnap Records.



Make Up Your Own Mind
Flash Infatuation