Review: Maquina ‘Prata’

With two studio and a live album under their belts made of heavy and dirty exhausting hardcore techno sounds to knock out your whole body, Portuguese industrial core power trio Maquina perfects a rapturous mix of the ‘80s and ’90s alt sounds strongly contaminated by electronic influences.

After the release of lasts year debut, Dirty Tracks For Clubbing, there could only been one thing in your head; tremor. This band is gonna hurt by touching the deepest entangling veins in your body due to its continuous and relentless penetrating industrial propelling beats aided by an intoxicating feverish voice.

Their sound is made of an uncontrollable mass of compulsive, hypnotic and visceral techno beats underpinned by some of the most ruthless powers transmitted to thrown you into the middle of a dance floor to contort your body aimlessly. Believe me, this is very scary and not for fainted hearted.

Their deadly ultraviolent heavy beats continue with the release of their second work Prata (Silver). Here their sound, still dark and truculent, allows itself to drift towards different musical directions from those undertaken since their beginning. It appears calmer, but still penetrating. This is a band that doesn’t want to disgrace itself by hiding inside sound boxes that fight against their mature musical habitat, instead they fight to open up towards sounds already trampled on by other techno bands like Front Line Assembly or Front 242.

Beats after corrosive beats, their belligerent, sweaty and cathartic noise ends up trapping you until you’re no longer able to concentrate…

Its body takes control with an undeniable musical subversively found in Atari Teenage Riot or the most violent side of Techno Animal. We are inundated with noises of a metallurgical factory in full motion forgetting moments of solace which lead us to sheer moments of almost ‘spiritual’ calm ala Swans. You’re captured by disturbing and insane noise rhythms made by a threatening insanity that bring to your body an impossible peace of mind.

I do really wonder if before they go to bed, instead of a cup of herbal tea to calm their trembling bodies, they take a blast of GOD. When you start listening to the opening track Body Control, the sound comes to your ears as an undisturbed, hypnotic slow motion sonic metallic kraut fusion. But this is just an isolated case because what comes next in the case of Denial and Subversive is body to body techno hot wax sonics that capture Ministry communicating with the industrial art mayhem created by KMFDM’s Sascha Konietzko.

Beats after corrosive beats, their belligerent, sweaty and cathartic noise ends up trapping you until you’re no longer able to concentrate. This is part of their body technique. Maquina‘s Prata has quicksilver running throughout that don’t allow you to rest. The right soundtrack for heavy gym work and boxers.

Label: Fuzz Club Records
Band Links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram

Scribed by: Domenico ‘Mimmo’ Caccamo