Machines Of Loving Grace – Concentration

Concentration is a great 90s industrial rock album - great hooks, well written songs, and with a perfect production from Roli Mosimann which strips the sound down, making it clean, thumping and well separated. The unlikely stars aligned somehow for this album - inbetween the trying-too-hard but also not serious first album, and the third which was too goth, taking itself too seriously, MLG and Mosimann came up with a simple, understated masterpiece with all the elements just right, no pretentiousness, no overdevelopment, no gimmicks. Still sounds great 30 years later.

This album doesnt get the recognition it deserves and it will forever hold a special place in my collection. Incredible.

It is a disappointment that an album as rich and coherent as this has become a moment of the past. The most memorable are divided between 'lilith/eve' (why is there a slash?), 'limiter', and 'ancestor cult.' This is the epitome of industrial, as bands like TKK, NIN, and Skinny Puppy were at their peak. A perfect amalgamation of hard rock and electronics bordering on techno, this unit managed to blend religion with sarcasm without including blood, gore, or tits. They even skip vulgar language, sexist remarks, and racial comments. Machines of Loving Grace don't even have any experimental tunes or bipolar ones on Concentration. Although there is no lyric book, this phrase is forever etched into the neurons in my brain, "don't place faith in human beings; human beings unreliable things... a hurricane triggered by butterfly wings." 'Limiter' was the standout in the beginning, but as I became a devout listener, the evidence pointed to the fact that 'ancestor cult' deserved the crown, hands down.