Tag Archives: The Machine Room

EH1 Live review.

Now in its second year EH1 Live has gone from strength to strength, showcasing some of the country’s finest unsigned talent.

Feast started the day the Electric Circus with the fantastic Gold Lions, their set didn’t start the festival gently but kicked it right in the teeth, ripping away the early Sunday cobwebs with their searing, relentless blues rock/garage sound.
They have been described as a Scottish White Stripes but that’s just lazy journalism, sure the homage to Jack White is apparent, but these boys rip apart the rulebook and batter it with blistering fever.
‘1000 Ships’ and ‘ Elsie’s House’ were particular highlights, all energetic energetic fretwork and pounding vigour.
The Gold Lions simply deserve to be, the gem of the day!
Next up was troubadour Jack Rowberry
who belted out the tunes, with his backing band adding extra depth to his acoustic craftmanship.

The hotly-tipped The Machine Room’s set was unfortunately marred with technical difficulties, but the band soldiered on delivering an interesting indie pop set in which they flit between swapping guitars and keys, there’s a good buzz building up for the band and hopefully bigger stages beckon soon for the band.
The Modern Faces are a true festival band, full of bravado and rock and roll swagger, smashing the hype with a ‘Mon Then’ snarl.
The Dunfermline five piece delivered each stomping track with energy and passion. Their anthemic brand of britrock should easily equate to masses at the festivals. Definitely a band going places.

The Stagger Rats were excellent, and in true Stagger Rat style they were a member down but delivered a superb set which the heaving Liquid Rooms lapped up, especially stand out harmonious pop single ‘Fuzzy Fuzzy’ which had the local crowd in rapture.

Each track is consistently interesting, jumping from sweet melodies to gypsy guitar riffs. The Stagger Rats are an asset to the unsigned Scottish scene.
The Ok Social Club bounded on the stage and blasted their way through their hook driven, glossy spiky guitar pop set with vigour delivering tracks such as ‘The Late 90’s’ to the bouncing packed out crowd.

All in all EH1 was an incredibly well organised affair, but more importantly, it showcased some of Scotland’s more diverse and exciting talent.

Furthermore, to all the doubters that disagree that there is no Edinburgh scene or Scottish bands who are not good enough to break, you couldn’t be further from the truth, which the EH1 boys highlighted with a right good festival!

See you next year!

Live Review GoNorth – The Machine Room at The Room, Inverness

This is the second time Feast has seen The Machine Room and they just get better. Tonight they introduce their new drummer who does a brilliant job given this is his first show with the band. Their song structures demands a lot from the rhythm section upon which are layered synths, guitar and keyboards.

Amongst the songs they play tonight are the tracks which make up their great ‘Love from a Distance’ EP which you can get via their Facebook page. Their electronic dream-pop is so catchy and songs such as ‘Your Head on the Floor Next Door’ and ‘Camino De Soda’ deserve to be playlisted on our airwaves all summer long. They are amongst the freshest electro new wave bands to come around which also includes Kitsune signings Juveniles and Citizens. Their sound is big and expansive but remains highly emotive and subtle and they are extremely groovy…

They are due to play T in the Park and Wickerman this Summer…so you know who to see if you find yourself at these festivals.

Live Review – This Is Music 6th Birthday feat. The Machine Room, Honeyblood and Magic Eye at Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh

Happy birthday This Is Music, you certainly know how to celebrate in style. We went along to join in the celebrations. Appearing tonight was an Edinburgh band and two Glasgow bands supporting Sub Pop favourites Still Corners. Being based in Edinburgh we’d heard good things about The Machine Room but didn’t know much about either of the Glasgow bands, Honeyblood and Magic Eye.

Magic Eye have just released an EP on cassette tape which you can get via their tumblr site at magiceyemusic.com and tonight’s show coincides with their tour to promote it. They create tender melodic songs which are like sonic dreamscapes which wouldn’t be out of place in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Heavily reverbed guitars swirl around dreamy vocals grounded by a solid electro drum beat. They’re back in Edinburgh with Honeyblood on Tuesday 29th May.

Honeyblood announce they only have six tapes left and wonder if anyone is going to go through to Glasgow the following day to see them at The Stag and Dagger Festival. I love it when you see a band you don’t know anything about and you get it and they’re great. This quite simply sums up Honeyblood. They term themselves a ‘garage rock-crunch pop’ band. Lyrically eloquent, they don’t pull their punches, as on Super Rat about a former relationship, “I will hate you forever, scum bag sleaze slimeball grease”. Single ‘No Spare Key’ is a standout as is their electrifying cover of The Innocence Mission’s ‘The Girl On My Left’. Probably no tapes left but visit their site anyway yumhoneyblood.tumblr.com. Got to be THE show of the week when they play with Magic Eye next Tuesday (29th May ) at Door 39, Niddrie Street.

The Machine Room come on stage all very unassuming; plug in, smile, and in an instant hit the audience with a brilliant electro-esque wall of sound which is made up of tracks from their recent ‘Love From A Distance’ EP. Each of their songs creates a lasting impression, highly emotive, full of synth stabs and echoing vocals and the crowd are obviously well aware of the qualities of this band when they cheer from the vocals which opens standout track “Camino de Soda”. All of their songs intrigues, building layer upon layer of sound into a catchy and very individual approach to creating haunting and beautiful music. See them at the end of term Edinburgh Art School revel on Friday June 1st.

No Spare Key by Honeyblood

Flamin’ Teenage by MAGIC EYE