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Secret Machines music review
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Secret Machines Ten Silver Drops
Reprise / Wea
Global warming got you down? Have you become convinced that the first circle of hell is not in the Earth’s core but rather outside your front door? Has Coldplay begun to sound appealing based on nomenclature alone? To phrase it delicately, it’s hot. Very hot. And the perfect combatant in this war against humidity are the Secret Machines, four boys playing blissfully cold and epic rock guaranteed to send a chill down your spine; God knows we could all use one.
Track listing:
01 Alone, Jealous, and Stoned
02 All At Once (It's Not Important)
03 Lightning Blue Eyes
04 Daddy's in the Doldrums
05 I Hate Pretending
06 Faded Lines
07 I Want To Know
08 1,000 Seconds
From the opening chords of “Alone, Jealous, and Stoned” (the Anton Newcombe story, apparently), Secret Machines deliver melancholy and ethereal pop tunes laced with tales of human frailty and tragedy. Lyrically, it’s miles away from the quasi-political Now Here, turning internally where that record focused on post 9/11 paranoia. Musically, it’s a surging, epic force of a record (the eight-minute misstep “Daddy’s in the Doldrums” notwithstanding).
Ten Silver Drops is an album of broken relationships and missed ideals, but whereas some bands would drag this down to an emo cliché, Secret Machines brand of Pink Floyd pop adds an atmosphere of delicacy and grace. The surging, potent “All At Once” is a perfect example: despite describing a lifetime of romantic disappointments (“I always waited for you”), it manages to soar musically, thanks to an Echo & the Bunnymen charm.
While this band has dogged comparisons to U2 and the Flaming Lips, it’s inevitable that they would arise. Ben Curtis’ vocals bear a strong resemblance to Lips singer Wayne Coyne, and their sound is U2 taken down a notch. And while that doesn’t degrade tracks like “Lightning Blue Eyes,” these comparisons only show the maturity and lyrical panache that Secret Machines are occasionally lacking – just look at the clunky “I Hate Pretending,” which turns a busted drug deal (“There was an undercover cop parked right across the road”) into some rebellious teenage statement (“I hate pretending I’m like you”) without any grace or finesse. Secret Machines have made it past the second album slump, but they’re still (occasionally) in the throes of a difficult adolescence.
