Review: Emmanuel.7

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Emmanuel.7
“Machines in Routine”
(Thorp Records)

These songs are too long.  E.7 is a damn heavy, grinding metalcore act with traces of Rage Against the Machine in their repertoire and to have songs approaching the five-minute mark with regularity is just a headache waiting to happen.  “Machines” boasts fourteen hard-hitting tracks (what else would you expect from Thorp?) with plenty of smarts.

“He Died at 47” brings the hizzy down with the tortured refrain, “The misperception/ A misconception of the way you really are/ The one who dies with the most in the end/ Still dies” shows these guys aren’t just another band with an attitude and the ability to mash out a few chords.

No, E.7’s knack for deconstructing certain facets of modern American society has put them a notch up from so many of the wasted acts running around screaming about how pissed they are.  Still, E.7 occasionally wallows into a tough guy routine where some dude starts talking in a manner that’s waaaaay too close to something I’d expect from Fred Durst.

If these guys could keep the intensity and cut some of the filler, we’d have ourselves a real winner.