Machine Head

Machine Head came out of Oakland in 1991, the brainchild of singer and guitarist Robb Flynn, and Burn My Eyes, in 1994, hit like a wrecking ball through a plate-glass window. Flynn and Logan Mader's guitars grind and chug, Adam Duce's bass rumbles underneath, and "Davidian" is pure fury, a groove-thrash battering. That sheer aggression made them pioneers of a new wave of American heavy metal. Their early records built a big following in Europe before America caught up.

It wasn't a smooth road. Supercharger landed in 2001 just 3 weeks after the September 11 attacks, and its single "Crashing Around You" and a video full of burning buildings were pulled from the airwaves; the fallout nearly split the band in 2002, though they wound up back on Roadrunner. Then came The Blackening, in 2007, a turn toward long, sprawling, old-school thrash that critics went wild for, with "Halo" as one of its peaks and "Aesthetics of Hate" earning a Grammy nomination.

Unto the Locust and Bloodstone & Diamonds kept the momentum up, Catharsis flirted with nu metal again, and Of Kingdom and Crown, their first concept album, went back to the groove and thrash roots. Flynn is the only original member left standing, but Mader and drummer Chris Kontos came back to tour the 25th anniversary of Burn My Eyes.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.