8th April 2026

Review: “Towers” by The Machinist

Not to be confused with the Brad Anderson directed 2004 psychological thriller film starring Christian Bale for which he was so thin it’s painful, The Machinist are a Manchester based Industrial Blackened Death Metal trio who have been musing on the darker themes of Science Fiction for the past six years. In that time they have given us a pair of full length albums in 2020’s “I Am Void” and 2025’s “Contempt For Life“, the titles alone being enough to tell you that something wicked this way comes. The project is the work of vocalist and multi instrumentalist John Thompson (Reign of Erebus, NekroDrako) who has along side him Reliquia guitarists Tobias Gray and George Kal.

Mixed and mastered by George Nerantzis (Abbath, Dark Funeral, Rotting Christ) and coupled with the evocative artwork of Duncan MacPherson (Extinction Of Mankind, Deus Mori), the three horsemen of the apocalypse have created nearly twenty five minutes of music across three tracks in EP “Towers” to make your ears bleed… and it’s as bleak, harsh and unrelenting as you’d expect.

The journey down the left hand path to the bowels of hell itself begins with the mechanised beating that is “Sagittarius In Bloom“, the drum machine pummelling the cranium as fierce first verse scalds. A passage of John Carpenter movie film score like keys is glorious nostalgic, the choir like vocal melodies that follow adding an strange yet epic grandeur to the dissonant riffs. The mid cut solo is a powerful undertaking, very much in keeping with the nature of the gargantuan beast, which at nearly seven and a half minutes is as captivating as it is complex.

“Of Creation And Cancer” follows a similar path but with Technical Metal guitar flourishes to chemically enhance the pounding rhythms, the drum machine locked in overdrive when it delivers blast beats that sound like the gunfire of alien weaponry. There is an almost cinematic quality to the scale of this one with so much going on underneath the surface that it makes for an intense listening experience. 90’s break beats and warm, sinister synths in the final third are glorious, reminiscent of “Industrial” era Pitchshifter and more recently Zebadiah Crowe.

At eleven minutes, grand finale “Cellular Catharsis” is a mammoth undertaking in every sense of those words, a tune that twists and contorts as it flows from desperate cries with blackened riffs to galloping drums and choral inspired cleans. A towering inferno of annihilation, this one feels like the basis for science fiction horror movie with all the atmospheric darkness you could ever wish for. The melodic break with clean guitars and programming as you enter the final third is a spellbinding moment of clarity before the kind of weighty, crushing and powerful crescendo leaves you wondering what you just heard [7.5/10]

Track Listing