✦✦✦✧ This is the best Machine Head album of the last five years. So what if it’s ten minutes too long, and will simultaneously remind you of three other Machine Head albums so much that you’ll actually wonder if they’re covering themselves. It’s like a not-very-good pizza: it’s still pretty fucking good.

★★☆☆ This album starts out sounding like an amalgam of a few hallmark Machine Head albums (“Burn My Eyes,” “The Blackening”), Metallica’s black album, and latter-day Slipknot. And Hans Zimmer’s “Inception” soundtrack. And maybe a little Pink Floyd by way of Queensrÿche. Welcome to Robb Flynn’s continuing efforts to take the high road (or at least as high a road as you’re gonna find in the East Bay).