4 out of 5

Label: self-released

Produced by: Allen Epley, Kevin Bowe (recorded by)

Over here in Vaguely-Offensive land, we don’t give out no half stars. But if we did, BirdHands’ Machiniste would maybe be like a 3.5. But given how good the good parts of this album are (and how far away from bad the less-good parts are), I’m happy to round up.

BirdHands is Allen Epley of Shiner / The Life and Times doing bass stuff and Ian Prince of Houston doing drums stuff. It is 0% inaccurate to say that a good chunk of Machiniste – in fact the “good” parts I’m identifying, although obviously that’s subjective – sound pretty exactly like the groovier parts of Shiner mapped to Houston’s arena rock, all sans vocals. The me that considers that subjectively good gets chills at that description. In other words: Machiniste damn rocks. …On the whole.

Something else to note here is that Epley and Prince recorded their parts separately; also, if you weren’t reading liner notes, you might’ve thought this was a band of many guitars and someone on keys and someone doing loops and live drums, when in fact: it’s just our two fellas. That means there’s some genius in piecing two players’ parts together, and that there are many more parts than just two that are being mixed and massaged into some of the most headbangey, room-filling instrumental rock there is. But as we go along, Epley and Prince get bitten by the knob-fiddling bug to try on some different hats: stoner rock; Minus the Bear-like electro math. And, to me, those hats sometimes tip the music into a realm that feels a bit too glossy; a bit too roleplay-pretend. The core grooves still rip; Squee-Dop! – the stoner rock track – is a dumb name but still fun; but these tracks, which crop up moreso on the album’s B-side, make up the subjectively not-as-good stuff on the album, losing the in-your-face flair of the A-side.

This doesn’t mean I solely favor volume or the songs that don’t clearly sound digitally manipulated: ElectrMagneticPulse is my favorite of the batch, and probably plays both sides (rocking; bleeping) pretty equally. There’s also quite a bit of balance baked in in terms of volume, as Epley and Prince have been around long enough to know how to build tracks up along the way. However, the A-side nonetheless leans more into momentum, and sounding live, whereas the B-side dispels that. That material alone makes this set worth it, but I’ve spent too many words on making the distinction between approaches, distracting from the fact that the B-side also rocks, just differently.

J.Robbins mix is pretty great for this stuff, functioning well with the noise barrage (which, yes, means the glossier tracks are maybe as such owing to his touch…) and Jason Livermore’s master keeps Epley’s fuzz and Prince’s hard-hitting low-end balanced without being overwhelming.