Rene Sagnelli – The Machine

If you’re looking for some supremely high quality melodic metal, look no further than the latest single from Rene Sagnelli. The Machine is a high class onslaught of industrial rock power that exhausts your senses whilst leaving you satisfied that you’ve been in the presence of something really quite special.

There are touches of several of our favourite rock and metal artists in Rene’s material, whilst still managing to be unique. We hear a lot of Queensryche influence, as well as Megadeth, Metallica (Rene has toured with the well received Metallica band, Master Of Puppets) and Judas Priest.

We just love the way this song starts. There’s no messing about here – you know exactly what you’re in for and as the song develops it is relentless in its quest to impress your ears.

With exceptional tightness between the drummer and bassist, this is a really quality piece of musicianship. We love the Metallica style stabs on drums and bass with the intricate guitar solo timed perfectly over the top.

We were somewhat intrigued by a synth/keys solo section that felt like it was straight out of the Dream Theater playbook, which was then followed by an equally John Petrucci sound guitar solo – almost straight out of the Train Of Thought era of Dream Theater.

As to be expected for this style of music, it is a very solo heavy track, but the instrumentation is so exciting that at times you almost forget. The double kick moments are a great touch and the rise and fall throughout the whole track makes you feel like you’ve been on some kind of euphoric roller coaster by the end.

Whilst we can hear that Sagnelli is a superb vocalist we just felt the production on the vocals was a touch less considered than the rest of the instrumentation. The vocal track feels as though it is lacking some top end, leaving the lyrics a little hard to define. We’d personally suggest a little more top end in the vocals for some clarity and definition as well as a little less of the vocal track in the low mid-mid section where its just a little dominant. Perhaps just a touch more compression on the vocals will bring them further forward in the mix.

Rene Sagnelli’s powerful, classy, masterful style of music is right up our street and he’s most definitely an artist that we’ll be keeping a very close eye on.