The Secret Machines - Ten Silver Drops

If you like succinct, wrap-it-all-up-in-a-neat-three-minute-package songwriting, The Secret Machines are not for you. In their bio vocalist Brandon Curtis states, “Some things are worth soaking in. If you think of music as a picture or a story, sometimes you want to be immersed in that world for a while….Just because it can’t be said fast, doesn’t mean it’s not valid.” With Ten Silver Drops, Curtis and his bandmates have created an album of driving, psychedelic rock meant to be absorbed rather than hurriedly experienced. When bands that specialize in psychedelic, tripped-out rock succeed, they have managed to take a song through a wealth of emotions while holding tight to a fundamental emotional and musical thread. When they fail, it is because the thread has unraveled and allowed the song to dissipate into a fit of self-important meandering. Fortunately on the majority of Ten Silver Drops, The Secret Machines find themselves highly successful. The album begins with a trio of well-played, highly melodic songs (“Alone, Jealous and Stoned”, “All at Once (It’s Not Important)”, and “Lightning Blue Eyes”) that manage to explore a variety of moods and textures without managing to lose the plot. Full of momentum and expressing a great range of sentiment, “Alone, Jealous and Stoned” especially displays the band’s philosophy. Lest the band expend all energy early on, they save two of their best for last. Closing the album, “I Want to Know” and “1,000 Seconds” are a pair of piano-driven ballads that expand to allow for some intense guitar work by Ben Curtis. The tracks between the opening trio and closing couplet are mediocre in comparison, yielding one example of the self-important meandering mentioned above. “Daddy’s In the Doldrums” is a poor attempt at a Pink Floyd song that never quite materializes throughout its nearly 8 and a half minutes. Spanning over forty-five minutes in only 8 tracks, Ten Silver Drops is an exercise in patience. However over the majority of the record, The Secret Machines reward such patience with their finely-crafted songs. [www.thesecretmachines.com]