Band names are usually pretty meaningless, especially in metal. This band's name, though, sums them up pretty well: slightly generic, not too much originality, but with a lot of force and conviction. And a bass solo! That alone earns them huge points in my books. The bass is the most interesting thing on this album-- some of the coolest bass-work I've heard in a while. I like the vocals, too--harsh without overdoing it. The music in general is an unusual mixture of accessibility and experimental metal. This middle ground remains surprisingly unexplored, but the few bands that have ventured into it have become some of my favorites (Voivod and Obliveon come to mind, although they have little in common with Death Machine beyond the fact that they all share some progressive tendencies). Unfortunately, Death Machine will not become one of my favorites-- they're good musicians, and there isn't anything I don't like, but they don't push things quite far enough. I had the same criticism of Zero Hour, the progressive metal band that shares many of its members with Death Machine. This album relies pretty heavily on Meshuggah, particularly in its second half. The first four or five songs are pretty compelling, but the energy isn't sustained through the course of the album. This shows in the lengths of the songs, some of which clock in at under 3 minutes-- I've always thought that short songs show a certain lack of inspiration. I also find it annoying, because it doesn't give you time to get into the music. But I imagine a lot of people would like this, and it is one or two steps ahead of about 90% of the other metal out there. Interestingly, I got Nevermore's "Enemies of Reality" at the same time as this, and have almost exactly the same things to say about it, in that it relies too heavily on Meshuggah. I guess this is inevitable to some extent, since Meshuggah is probably the most revolutionarly metal band of the last ten years, but there's a difference between being influenced by something and simply regurgitating it.