Do you like metal? I can't stand most it but sometimes bands take the genre and do something with it. They keep the sonic piledriver but add some texture and depth either lyrically or in the use of instruments other than the obligatory riffing electric guitar.
The God Machine were portentous, possibly pretentious but they were doing something different with metal. Like Nirvana they were a three-piece but they managed to fashion a big sound that was neither part of that (then) burgeoning grunge scene nor a companion to the funk-metal luminaries such as Jane's Addiction and RHCP. They were, after all, signed to Fiction, a British label and home to The Cure.
Ironically, much of the album is not a million miles away from the type of prog/goth/rock diet offered by Cure albums such as 'Disintegration'. In many ways 'Scenes from the Second Storey' could be that album's companion piece. Both were released within a few months of each other.
But The God Machine are harder and heavier. It's by no means an easy listen at 80+ minutes. Aside from perhaps 'She Said' there are no hummable tunes nor any real let-up in the onslaught, with most songs falling into the 'quiet then loud' type of arrangement. However, on a number of tracks they successfully marry their intensity with either ball grabbing force ('Home') or with a welcome use of orchestration ('Purity'). The album ends with the sparse 'The Piano Song' that puts one in mind of Phillip Glass. Perhaps 'The Blind Man' is the definitive God Machine track as it grows to its final heavy onslaught
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'Scenes from the Second Storey' was The God Machine's debut album. They only made one more,('One Last Laugh in a Place of Dying in 1994) their career cut prematurely short by the sudden death of bassist Jimmy Fernandez. Not for the faint-hearted but an interesting and challenging addition to a tired genre and a million times better than all those current MTV friendly lightweights in this field.
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