Metal Machine

Midnight Sun | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 13, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Lmp
• ASIN: B00005QKB3
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #368,871 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Metal Gods

2. Dungeons Of Steel

3. Temple Of The Graal

4. Steel To Steel

5. Metal Machine

6. Fight

7. Distorted Eyes

8. Your Blood Burns In Hell

9. Keeper Of The Gate

10. Metal Will Stand Tall (plus hidden bonustrack)

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

New to the band is singer Jakob Samuel who has replaced shouter Pete Sandberg. "There were no personal problems between Pete and I," Reingold explains. "It was just the right time to go our separate ways. It's a bit like a football team - you have to change the players now and again to stay competitive. Even if such a shake-up means taking a certain risk." After Sandberg left Reingold contacted his old friend, Jakob Samuel who travelled down from Stockholm and who put all doubts aside at the very first rehearsal session together. "He was steaming!", Reingold recalls, still impressed. "His singing just blew us away." Guitarist Magnus Karlsson, who joined the band for the recordings of the last album, Nemesis has become an especially important part of the current Midnight Sun lineup. On Metal Machine, Karlsson can demonstrate all his talent. His precise, rhythmical way of playing and his clever solos prove him to be a brilliant instrumentalist, who enhances Metal Machine as much as he does on his own new Last Tribe album, The Ritual. Completing the current lineup is drummer Jaime Salazar, certainly one of the best and most popular Swedish drummers of the day and also a member of the Scandinavian progrock elite band, The Flowerkings. Majestic Keyboarder, Richard Anderson was invited to play as guest musician and although keyboard parts on Metal Machine are few and far between, Richard can be heard during his brilliant solo in ´Distorted Eyes`. The eleven tracks of the new album were produced by Anders Theo Theander (Majestic, Pain Of Salvation etc.) in the Swedish ´Roasting House` Studios! .

Midnight Sun was formed in Summer 1996. Still under the name of Tranquility the group gave a series of club shows all over Sweden and - after changing the band name to Midnight Sun – recorded their debut album, Another World in the ´Roasting House` Studio. The CD was released in in Japan, Sweden and Germany in 1997 and received brilliant reviews in BURRN, Young Guitar, Music Life, etc. Their follow-up work, Above & Beyond was released a year later and showed, with the help of two guest musicians, drummer Hempo Hildén (Dokken, Slash, Glenn Hughes Band) and the brilliant guitarrist John Norum (ex Europe), the band in the style of the heroes of melodic hardrock´s á la Rainbow, Deep Purple and Yngwie Malmsteen. BURRN awarded Above & Beyond 89 from 100 possible marks and this was reflected in other reviews all over the world. For their third album, Nemesis (also awarded 89) Midnight Sun changed the line-up again. In the place of guitarist Chris Palm came the young, talented Magnus Karlsson who had already made a great name for himself for his fabulous playing in numerous other Swedish bands. Karlsson's fancy playing left a permanent mark on Nemesis and often led to comparisons with Malmsteen and even to Iron Maiden.

Product Description

It certainly requires a healthy portion of self-confidence to call the opening track of one's new album ´We Are The Metal Gods`. Midnight Sun from Sweden have good reason to be self-confident, because their latest mixture of powermetal, epic influences, true metal and progressive passages have never sounded as exciting and mature as on this, their fourth album, Metal Machine. Once again mastermind and bass player Jonas Reingold has put together some fabulous metal songs and recorded them with his extraordinarily technically talented band. The result is an album which takes the fans to a variety of mysterious places to face evil witchcraft, metal gods and guardians of magical gates. Appropriately named song titles such as ´Dungeons Of Steel`, ´Temple Of The Graal`, ´Your Blood Burns In Hell`, ´Keeper Of The Gate` and ´Metal Will Stand Tall` speak a clear, unmistakeable language.

The new material was written from September 2000 onwards, after Reingold had badly injured his hand playing soccer and needed to undergo surgery. The instrumentalist was out of the music game for two months, but still worked on the basic ideas for the new album. "Metal Machine is by far the best album that I've ever made," he says proudly. "I think it has an unmistakeable sound, fits into the world of heavy metal perfectly and the music and text form a solid unit. Midnight Sun fans will really enjoy the new album."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Metal Gods....Maybe!!, January 14, 2002

By 

"themusicmaster" (Sheppard A.F.B., TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Metal Machine (Audio CD)

For those who liked Helloween with Michael Kiske on lead vocals - this album is for you. You can also here a little Iron Maiden, lots of Hammerfall, and a little Rhapsody in their sound. Great cover and great metal album!!

4.0 out of 5 stars Quality trad metal, October 8, 2011

By 

Paul Lawrence "'EJL'" (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Metal Machine (Audio CD)

This is the sort of honest traditional metal music that should grace every headbangers shelf. The album comprises ten tracks of warm, well produced and well executed metal. Nothing more, nothing less. The gist of things here is the thumping drum sound combined with the full faucet guitar attack. Quite how the band would be able to pull this off live I'm not sure but when the whole thing is fronted by Jakob Samuel who seems to combine some heft to his vox with the ability to inflect up into the higher registers to good effect while at the same time he seems to have a somewhat whisky soaked tinged to his voice during the times he isn't hitting those high notes. And it's this quality to his voice that helps centre the band so well right into the middle of the trad metal genre.

Stand out tracks you should perhaps try to check out would be... well it's hard to say such is the consistency of everything that's going on here but I'd recommend Dungeons of Steel and Metal Machine. But just a cursory glance at the track listing will probably tell you what the songs sound like and in this case I'd have to rate that as a compliment.

With a somewhat catching cover, nice enough booklet that has some good and bad moments this is a release well worth your trad metal dollar. A true highway album - this is the sort of album that will get your car moving faster on the highway. What more excuse do you need?

5.0 out of 5 stars Melodic metal featuring Jacob Samuels (" The Poodles") and Magnus Karlsson ("Primal Fear"), February 27, 2011

By 

Nikiforos V. Skoumas (Athens Greece, Cambridge UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Metal Machine (Audio CD)

"Metal Machine" is the 4th and latest to date studio album by Swedish melodic metal band "Midnight Sun" originally released in 2001. The album was to feature an all star line-up by today's standards including singer Jacob Samuels ("The Poodles", ex-"Talisman"), guitarist Magnus Karlsson ("Primal Fear", "Starbreaker") drummer Jamie Salazar along with founder bassist Jonas Reingold.

Unquestionably "Metal Machine" would come to be the heaviest album this band ever produced, clearly directed towards melodic metal (as the title suggests) rather than hard rock. For that matter the album draws strongly upon `Judas Priest's sound and themes; essentially they attempt to mix their own melodies and instrumentations with tempos and riffs that undeniably bring to mind the great British band.

It has to be said that all members have managed to cope admirably with the shift in direction. Jacob Samuels in particular uses high-pitched on a good number of tracks and although far from his characteristic style, he proves effective and convincing. For Magnus Karlsson, as most are aware, there is nothing too difficult to play, so he naturally adapts to the musical direction while his lead guitar parts remain as inventive as ever. Favorite songs include "Temple of the Graal", "Steel to steel", "Metal machine" and "Distorted eyes".

Overall "Metalmachine" proved another great addition to the "Midnight Sun" catalogue effectively reinventing the style of the band which would evolve from album to album.