FAILURE MACHINE – EP REVIEW

Failure Machine – Elko EP 

Failure Machine - Elko EP

Release Date: Out Now

Here Ye, Here Ye! Gather round good people for Failure Machine are back and they’ve come tooled up. The Reno outfit have become a quartet and switched around duties but the soul and spirit of rock’n’roll is still at the heart of everything they do. New EP ‘Elko’ gets moving with ‘You & Me’ riding in on a horse made of urgent garage drums and the kind of fuzzed up melody that you only normally hear creeping out of rehearsal rooms. This is a dirty western love song which finds frontwoman Rachael McElhiney in fine voice a la Beth Ditto but with more soul and less shriek. It’s one hell of a strong start.

‘Shame’ continues with the fuzzed-up theme and it’s those raw production qualities that make me love these guys even more as they get all Alabama Shakes up in your grill. Now slide on over here sugar and let’s slow things down a little. ‘So You Say’ is a late-night Louisiana blues ballad full of love, heartache, betrayal and flickers of hope that is the best use of a baritone sax I’ve heard since Morphine’s ‘Honey White’ first hit my ears back in 1995. The EP closes out with the garage-soul of ‘That’s the Way (I Want It)’, a song designed to shake what your mamma gave you until your wig falls off or you fall in love. The full package is what Failure Machine have now so can we all stop fucking around and make them the biggest band in the world now please? I’ve got the t-shirt and I just want everyone else to get on board too.


Live Dates:

16th March – The HOL, Reno
22 March – Grem Fest
24th March – Treefort Music Festival, Boise

19th April – Grem Fest

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