Ape Machine – Live At Freak Valley


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On record, Portland, Oregon’s Ape Machine are a decent prospect. Three albums of solidly listenable stoner rock suggests maybe their profile should be higher, but their new live album Live at Freak Valley (Ripple) falls short of expectations. Recorded at the band’s set at Germany’s Freak Valley Festival last year, the 11 tracks on offer are billed as a “scorching recording of Ape Machine’s performance in front of the sold-out audience,” but in reality there’s little on here to set the world on fire.

Drawing most of its material from 2013’s Mangled by the Machine (Ripple), Ape Machine are clearly a decent band; vocalist Caleb Heinze has a decent set of pipes while guitarist Ian Watts combines 70 stoner boogie with an aggressive hard rock edge, but the recordings just lack any spark.

The accompanying PR goes on about “captivating and commanding an audience” but it’s the crowd’s absence from the record that drains it of all atmosphere. Only occasionally is there an audible response from the people and little of the way of interaction from the band, so instead of a feeling of “being there” you’re left with what feels like live demos.

The band sound fine; the songs are solid and the quality of the recordings decent, but there’s just a lack of excitement from start to finish. ‘Strange are the People,’ ‘Every Body Bleeds’ and ‘Angry Man’ all have a confident swagger and plenty of bouncing riffs, but when the album highlight is a straight cover of Deep Purple’s ‘Black Night’, it might be a sign that something isn’t quite right.

While far from terrible, Live from Freak Valley barely registers as a classic among Ape Machine’s own back catalogue, let alone in the history of scorching live albums. Which is shame as on record they sound like they’ve got potential to be pretty great. One for the dedicated fans.

 

6.0/10

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DAN SWINHOE


Powered Wig Machine Streaming “Highish Noon”


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Powered Wig Machine is streaming “Highish Noon”, off their sophomore album Supa-Collider, out via Battleground Records here.

The album now comes raging back to life on 180-gram translucent green vinyl with orange and black splatters, housed in a deluxe gatefold package and bearing the new LP-only track, “Highish Noon,” along with a download of the record.

POWERED WIG MACHINE Live:
Mar 17: JR’s Bar – Sierra Vista, AZ (w/ Ape Machine, Ghetto Blaster)

Now in their eighth year as a band, Powered Wig Machine’s ever-evolving, entertaining brew of fuzzed-out, southern fried blues-boogie and righteous jams merging classic rock/blues influences with that of top-tier modern rock acts, the Tombstone, Arizona-based “Tombstoners” have issued several recorded works since inception, including their 2009 debut full-length, Bearded Goddess. In March of 2014 the band delivered the fantastic jams of their sophomore album, Supa-Collider, their dexterous diversity and empowering tactics shining brighter than the blazing sun which ignites their desert surroundings on the album, putting the listener on cruise control into the furthest reaches of the planet and beyond, the tunes infiltrated with a slight flux of sci-fi otherworldliness. Self-recorded by the band and mixed by Brian Gold at Primrose Studio in Sierra Vista, mastered by Chris Goosman at Baseline Audio, the artwork was crafted by Joseph Rudell and Rudy Flores. Fans of Clutch, Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, Queens Of The Stone Age and Fu Manchu, tune in.

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