Secret Machines: Secret Machines

Just over three minutes into "The Walls Are

Starting To Crack," the sixth track on Secret Machines' new self-titled album,

the wounded song goes off the rails. Ninety seconds of fluttering, clattering

ambience gives way to a searing guitar solo and cosmic gospel wailing. It's a

refreshingly weird passage on a record that otherwise deviates little from the

brawny but accessible psychedelia of the band's first two.

Secret Machines opens with "Atomic Heels,"

a glammy stomper that sounds like a leftover from the last album, the polished Ten

Silver Drops.

The chugging, chiming "Underneath The Concrete" and wistful "Now You're Gone"

offer similarly smooth pleasures—too smooth, maybe, as both songs veer

too close to forgettable pop rock. The latter features a simple, melodic

refrain, but it sounds too much like a somber rewrite of Glass Tiger's "Don't

Forget Me (When I'm Gone)."

The band is most successful when indulging its

propensity for musical gigantism. The longer songs on Machines, like the aforementioned "Walls,"

best fulfill the big promise of the band's debut, Now Here is Nowhere. Elegant guitar

flourishes and rabid, mammoth drumming make the nearly eight-minute "Have I Run

Out" a standout. Only the longest song, the 11-minute closer "The Fire Is

Waiting," wears out its welcome, pummeling convincingly but failing to reach

crescendo.