Bloodstone & Diamonds
| Bloodstone & Diamonds | ||||
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| Studio album by Machine Head | ||||
| Released | November 7, 2014 | |||
| Recorded | Jingletown Studios, CA, 2014 (Additional recording at Top Floor Studios, Gothenburg, Sweden, August 2014) | |||
| Genre | Thrash metal, groove metal | |||
| Length | 70:59 | |||
| Label | Nuclear Blast | |||
| Producer | Robb Flynn, Juan Urteaga | |||
| Machine Head chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Bloodstone & Diamonds | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 96/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Blabbermouth.net | 9/10 |
| Rock Sound | 8/10 |
| The Guardian | |
Bloodstone & Diamonds is the eighth full-length studio album by American heavy metal band Machine Head, released by Nuclear Blast on 7 November 2014. This is the first album to feature new bassist Jared MacEachern who replaced founding bassist Adam Duce in 2013. Although the album doesn't feature a title track, the album gets its name from a lyric from the opening track and second single "Now We Die".
The album was once again mixed by Colin Richardson with additional tracking, editing, and mixing by Andy Sneap and Steve Lagudi. All album art was done by Travis Shinn. Bloodstone & Diamonds is the band's first album not to be released on Roadrunner Records.
Like with previous Machine Head releases, the album's lyrics detail political and social themes, particularly civil unrest, dissatisfaction and injustice, often with violent conclusions. "Night of Long Knives" is not about the Röhm-Putsch, but instead the Manson Family murders in Hollywood in 1969.
"Imaginal Cells" is an instrumental featuring samples from the audiobook Spontaneous Evolution by Dr. Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman.
The album was met with great critical acclaim, with Dom Lawson of The Guardian writing "Striking an exquisite balance between brute force, insistent melody and bold experimentation, this is the finest mainstream metal album of 2014 by a huge margin." In the first week of release, the album debuted at #21 in The Billboard 200 chart, becoming the band's highest charting album ever.
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