The Mechanical Boy, The Mechanical Boy

The Mechanical Boy truly threw me for a loop. I had no idea that Richmond, TX, was the musical place to be, but apparently it is. Musically, I totally hear Audioslave and the like in this band. I have mentioned countless times before that, in my book, metal blows chunks. Give me something new here, please. I’m not necessarily condemning an entire genre just because it does not fit my taste, but c’mon, the genre’s so stale that even the good bands sound like remixes of someone’s cover of an iconic cliché.

Now, you might be wondering “why did he start this review by stating that Richmond is the place to be?” Well, if you throw out the Audioslave similarities and that The Mechanical Boy doesn’t offer anything you haven’t already heard from the genre, you’re left with really good musicians in perfect harmony with the record studio/record label on this particular effort (a three-song promo for an upcoming EP release). There’s not one thing I can discern as not being perfectly done on these songs. The singer has a decent, albeit Cornell/Kiedis-knockoff-sounding, voice. All the musicians seem to have paid enough attention to the writing of their parts, as every song I was able to listen to was seamless. Nothing is overpowering anything else in the mix, and it wraps itself up nicely into the Mechanical Boy sound. The production qualities are superb, and everything is professional, to the point where you could tell someone was really nursing this baby out of the womb.

After hearing this, I’d recommend that all metal bands get their stuff done with the guys at Moshmellow Records. I mean, really, if you’re going to make metal, you might as well go professional with it. In my opinion, that’s way better than sounding like the only genre that’s more played out — “independent metal.” In fact, these guys not only have a Website but a clearly defined mission statement, stable of bands, engineers, etc. Sounds like Moshmellow’s bracing to bring metal back to the masses.