These Dead Machines debut with passionate and genre-blending album, Any Minute Now.

By Graeme Smith

A Manchester-based one-man alt-rock band, These Dead Machines is appearing on our blog for the first time thanks to the project’s debut album, Any Minute Now.

As a concept, the album reflects on themes of loss, resilience and hope and gets off to a severe and contemplative start with Subatomic Heart. We are treated to a passionate vocal that soars powerfully over a jagged rock instrumental. The lyrics linger, rich with pleading emotion, particularly during a rousing chorus.

Musically, it’s an interesting concept, pairing hard rock with electronica and touches of new wave and the Avant Garde. It’s the kind of sound that you’d associate with Manchester, blending the bombast of Britrock with the melancholy of Northern post-rock. Songs like Phantom and Hello World bring to mind the experimental edge of Patrick Wolf while So Skywards channels the grunge rock of the ’90s, blending it with something a little more melodic.

Heartstrings takes things in an acoustic direction with a simmering, intimate effort before Illuminate provides contrast with perhaps the album’s heaviest moment. The percussive textures and introspection of Signals and Recovery bring to mind The Postal Service while Lucky gives a powerfully smouldering highlight. Long Shadows closes the album’s journey with some bittersweet hopefulness.

Sometimes when starting out with a new project, artists can struggle to find a definitive sound. While The Dead Machines mix different influences and styles, there is certainly a distinctiveness to what he’s putting out. His new album is a sterling debut effort with plenty of twists and turns to keep things interesting. I’ll be keeping an eye out to see how the project develops.

Any Minute Now is out now and you can give it a listen below.