What was "The Blackening" showered with praise: Many metal magazines it even voted album of the year 2007. Although I can much abgewinnen Machine Head, I have never become so really warm with this record. The pieces are largely about me verfrickelt and bulky, like really wants me actually only "Halo", the more legitimately belongs to every Machine Head gig today. The long opener "Clenching the Fists of Dissent", for example, is not bad, but a bit too much of a good thing. Say, too long, too top-heavy. Actually, I sometimes do not understand myself why my album like so much, since I consider the successor "Unto The Locust", which is not necessarily knit simple as best Machine Head-Output. "The Blackening" is missing that certain something, and I can, apart from the mentioned points, do not say what exactly is. If the disk is a human being, one might speak of "personal differences". Sometimes it's just not as easy to grasp the personal taste into words.
