“What the hell?” was my exact and immediate thoughts when I first popped in Denial Machine’s self titled debut. The Illinois five piece formed from the ashes of Ditchwater, which featured Mark Anderson on guitar, Jaycen Angone on drums and Eamon Skube on bass. Produced by Chris Wisco (November’s Doom, Dirge Within and Nonpoint), the album sounds great but never stands on its own, sounding more like a mixture of all those bands rather than having its own identity.

The album starts off with what you could call “the calm before the storm” – an amazing Arabian intro, which is shortly followed with Skube’s brutal vocals. You can most definitely hear some All That Remains (Behind The Silence / Solitude-era) influence in their music, as they mesh together qualities of hardcore and modern metal.

Guitarists Mark Cichra and Mark Anderson have this album chock full of blazing guitar riffs that are sure to shred your face off and get your head steadily banging. I love how they change it up from acoustic to heavy, giving off a very “yin yang” feel.

While Denial Machine have amazing riffs, great vocals and fantastic drumming, it does tend to get monotonous and boring rather quickly. Even with all those really nice qualities, the album never really kept my attention. The band are talented musicians, but I still can’t seem to find myself enjoying an album like this as I normally would have.

While Denial Machine’s debut album did grow on me, it still came off a bit too generic and boring. After a few listens it just seems to mold in like a new pair of shoes. Given some time, I expect their next effort to be more promising.

2.5/5