Taint went under-appreciated in their day so it’s good to see the band’s spiritual successor HARK carrying on the torch. The Welsh quartet, featuring former Taint frontman Jimbob Isaac and former members of Whyteleaf, have just released their sophomore album Machinations (Season of Mist), and it’s a belter.

Much like their 2014 début, Crystalline (and Taint’s back catalogue before that) HARK’s latest is a hard one to pin down. Undoubtedly a rock album, but heavy, it straddles the whole spectrum of heavy music. You’ll see some call it Rock, some Metal, Progressive, Sludge, Stoner, and probably various combinations of the above. What is has in spades, whatever you label them, is a healthy dose of meaty riffs, endless time signature changes, and a general refusal to be boring.

Opener ‘Fortune Favours The Insane’ bolts out the gate with a flurry of twin guitar, ‘Disintegrate’ swings between tempos while Isaacs bellows, ‘Nine Fates’ builds on slow atmospherics into a series of searing solos and staccato groove. ‘Transmutation’ and ‘Sons of Pythagorus’ jump around from pillar to post. It’s all great but so condensed there’s very little time to ever stop and appreciate what great music you’ve just listened to.

There’s not a lot throughout the album that’s necessarily that complicated. There’s plenty of moments that can be best described as heavy and headbanging, but its packaged up and surrounded by hundreds of other, equally great moments, often in the form of some great lead guitar work or killer solos.

‘Comnixant 3-0’ shows a restrained side, acting as a largely acoustic prelude to the epic finale of ‘The Purge’ which rounds things off with a spacey deluge of squealing solos.

Photography: Owen G Richards

Heavy, unpredictable, yet packed a reassuringly comforting style, Machinations is a dense, multi-layered beast that demands repeated lessons to ingest and fully appreciate. A real gem and one fans of the band’s debut and Taint’s discography will find plenty to like.

8.0/10

DAN SWINHOE