LOVE SEX MACHINE
TRVE

If patience is a virtue, Love Sex Machine might as well be saints; albeit saints with a taste for the flthiest sludge metal rifs ofset by down-tempo, post-metal grooves and a fendish sense of lyrical humour.

Initially released way back in 2016, the Lillebased band’s sophomore album, ‘Asexual Anger’, was an overwhelming experience in
every sense of the word. Now, with another eight surreal years of life behind them, Love Sex Machine are fnally ready to unleash
‘Trve’; 10 long-awaited tracks of revitalised righteous indignation, wry social commentary and, of course, unspeakably disgusting
heaviness.

All this, however, is not to say that Love Sex Machine don’t take their craft seriously. From the outset, ‘Trve’ is testament to the band’s decade of experience as idiosyncratic stalwarts of the European sludge scene. We’re given mere seconds to catch our breath before album opener and lead single ‘FUCKING SNAKES’ grabs us by the throat,with each successive rif squeezing ever tighter. Abruptly released moments later, we’re left delirious and gasping for air as subsequent track ‘TEST26’ explodes in a hail of post-metal polyrhythm and razor sharp synthesizers...

If ‘Asexual Anger’ was an ordeal, ‘Trve’ is a new kind of nightmare. The intervening years have seen the French four-piece trim the fat from their bones to leave only a beating heart of menacing, hypnotic riffs that steadily tunnel their way into your brain. Whilst Love Sex Machine have never been more abrasive, there is a refned, undeniably pop edge to ‘Trve’ that adds a new element to the musical confrontation in which the band thrive. Atmospheric intros, extraneous refrains and eerie, instrumental outros might all be classic hallmarks of heavy music but you’ll fnd none of that here. Most tracks on ‘Trve’ clock in at around three minutes, with songs such as ‘Canopy’ fueled by high-octane black metal riffs played in an unsettlingly optimistic major key, augmented by synth motifs that verge on triumphant and, a frst for Love Sex Machine, penultimate track ‘Hollywood Story’ even featuring vocal harmonies that lift the listener for a brief, beautiful moment before the next towering wave of nihilistic sludge forces you right back down to your knees.

Collaboratively recorded by the band themselves and beloved producer Sanford Parker (Eyehategod, Yob, Harm’s Way) ‘Trve’ is a record defned by fatherhood as the world teeters on the brink of collapse, an unashamedly monstrous ofering. Whilst the rifs and refrains are steadfast, resolute and relentless, the lyrics for the album were written collectively by the band; constantly tweaked, amended and reinterpreted in order to capture the cumulative chaos of the intervening years.

‘Trve’ is Love Sex Machine springing a trap eight years in the making, one that’ll keep us strung up between a rock and a hard place so we can at least appreciate the view of the oncoming apocalypse.