Chicago-based duo Mechina have made quite the sprawling epic for themselves, having kept to a yearly release schedule since their album Empyrean in 2013. In between those yearly releases, the band have even managed to start cranking out a fairly sizeable single about halfway through the year, meaning that Mechina have not only proven to be prolific but also fairly reliable in terms of both punctuality and, as it has turned out so far, in terms of quality as well.

Mechina are an interesting proposition to first timers: a symphonic industrial metal group with some heftily growing djent elements who have created a grand sci-fi set of concept albums that they’ve continually added to and shifted timelines as they have seen fit, while remaining entirely in-studio and managing to keep those releases to, as mentioned before, a relatively stable schedule. Any heavy science fiction reader will recognize some of the various tropes in play in Mechina’s story, one of planetary warfare and destruction, planetary abandonment, and colony ships. It is a story told across hundreds of years and a handful of protagonists – protagonists whom have slowly been given different voices outside of the Mechina camp’s main vocalist Dave Holch by singer/solo-artist Mel Rose.