The God Machine ‎– One Last Laugh In A Place Of Dying...CD

Tragically, The God Machine were cut short in their prime with the sudden death of bassist Jimmy Fernandez, meaning that One Last Laugh In a Place of Dying is a posthumous album in more ways than one. The band had already released their well-regarded debut Scenes from the Second Storey in 1993 and One Last Laugh In a Place of Dying was already in the can at the time of Fernandez passing.
The album starts with two absolute piledrivers in ‘The Tremelo Song’ and ‘Mama’, both of which - on a cursory listen - suggest a band existing somewhere to the left of Jane’s Addiction. But it soon becomes obvious that there’s a lot more going on here. By track three, ‘Alone’, they start to turn down the volume and work with dynamics rather than outright power. The song is a long, drawn-out, introspective affair that at times sounds something like Codeine on steroids. The metal dynamics are still in evidence, but Sheppard’s vocals are nearer to the early groans of Mark Kozelek than any traditional rock frontman, and by the time of ‘In Bad Dreams’ strings and piano have been drafted in and it sounds not unlike...um…well…Sophia.
At this point you can imagine their more metal-aligned fans scratching their head and saying, “hey dudes, what’s all this pretty stuff, let’s rock”. They won’t have to wait long as ‘The Love Song’ brings back the noise but in the weirdest way possible. This is like metal/ funk/ dub, and it's at this point where you start to understand why the likes of Tool and Rage Against the Machine cited this band as an influence. One Last Laugh In a Place of Dying is an amalgamation of styles, though, never really sticking at one for long. There’s brooding atmospheric rock on ‘The Life Song’, something that sounds uncannily like a prototype Modest Mouse on ‘The Devil Song’, and pure raw slowcore emotion on album standout and closer (if you don’t count the weird electronic experiment that is ‘The Sunday Song’) ‘Boy By The Roadside’.
One Last Laugh In a Place of Dying is a near-perfect blending of emo, metal, post-rock and slowcore. It's easy to see why such a wide range of different bands cited them as an influence.

Label: Fiction Records

Country: UK & Europe

Media Condition: Very Good Plus (VG+)
Sleeve Condition: Near Mint (NM or M-)
Plays great but has a few superficial marks