Music / Machinae Supremacy

100% win and awesome.

Anyone with their ear to the ground
Knows we will not be bound.
You can push but you can't beat us down
We deliver the sound!

— "Elite"

Machinae Supremacy is a Swedish band formed in 2000 whose style mixes Power Metal with Electronic Music. They call themselves "SID Metal" because they use the MOS Technology 6581 SID, the synthesizer chip from the Commodore 64. Many of their songs are inspired by anime, Western Animation and Video Games; for example, "The Wired" was based on Serial Experiments Lain, while "Return To Snake Mountain" references Masters of the Universe. Along with the video game influence, they make a point of basing many of their lyrics on themes of self-empowerment, non-conformity and bringing revolution, quality, talent and depth to the mainstream music scene. They've had songs featured in the In the Groove series, are responsible for the soundtrack to Jets'n'Guns and contributed heavily to the Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams soundtrack.

A lot of their music, including their first studio album (Deus Ex Machinae), is available for free download, while Overworld, A View From the End of the World and Rise of a Digital Nation are all available for free streaming on their Soundcloud account.

At the start of 2014, they had their first North American show in National Harbor, Maryland at MAGfest 12. They made a second North American appearance at MAGfest 13.

Current Members:

• Robert "Gaz" Stjärnström: Vocals (2000-present) Rhythm guitar (2000-2006, 2011-2012)
• Jonas "Gibli" Rörling: Guitar (2000-present)
• Tomi "Huggy" Luoma: Guitar (2012-present)
• Andreas "Gordon" Gerdin: Bass (2011-present), Keyboard (2000-2006), Rhythm guitar (2006-2011)
• Niklas "Nicky $" Karvonen: Drums (2009-present)

Former Members:

• Kahl Hellmer: Bass (2000-2005)
• Johan "Poe" Palovaara: Bass (2005-2007)
• Johan "Dezo" Hedlund: Bass (2007-2011)
• "Tobbe": Drums (2000-2002)
• Tomas Nilsén: Drums (2002-2009)

Discography:

• Studio Albums:
  • Deus Ex Machinae (2004)
  • Redeemer (2006, available in the retail edition released by Spinefarm Records and the earlier and more elaborate Underground edition released under Machinae Supremacy's own Hubnester Industries)
  • Overworld (2008)
  • A View From the End of the World (2010)
  • Rise of a Digital Nation (2012)
  • Phantom Shadow (2014)
  • Into the Night World (2016)
• Compilation Albums:
  • The Beat of Our Decay (2011, UK-only)
• Webography:
  • Arcade (songs recorded 2000-2002)
  • Origin (songs recorded 2001-2002)
  • Fury (songs recorded 2002-2007)
  • Jets N Guns (2004)
  • Jets N Guns Gold (2006)
  • Live at Assembly 2011 (Live video, 2011)

Game soundtacks:

• Jets'n'Guns
• Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams

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This band shows examples of the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Actually the title of a song.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: "Cybergenesis"
• Album Title Drop: From "Elite" on Redeemer:
  "Here and now all your doubts are no more: / This is Redeemer."
  • "Dark City" retroactively becomes one for compilation album The Beat of Our Decay.
• Badass Boast: "Super Steve":
  "The fire it knows me / And I can walk through the blaze without a mark. / Forever it owes me / The life I lost in the dark."
  • "Hero":
    "They try to beat me / But they will not ever defeat me. / This time we're on my battleground."
  • "Rocket Dragon":
    As I burn down and murder, I know that God forgives
    'Spite all the things I've done, my soul yet forever lives
    And all those caught in the shadow of my wings have cause to fear
    I swear on all I've done, no evil shall linger here
  • "Dreadnaught":
    I will never grant you ground / Remember me and why you all bow down / To a metal-forged dominion
  • Their Catchphrase also qualifies.
• Book Ends: A View From the End of the World opens with the title track, a song that criticizes the overly religious and closes with "Remnant (March of the Undead IV)," which criticizes the idea that God is benevolent despite doing nothing to keep horrible atrocities from happening.
• Catchphrase: No specific one, but variations on "win and awesome".
• Cessation of Existence: The subject of "I Know The Reaper".
• Continuity Nod: The first and last Sidology songs end with the same motif from OutRun, just played at different keys and tempos.
• Concept Album: Phantom Shadow covers a story told from the perspective of six characters.
• Cover Version:
  • "Gimme More (SID)" is a cover of a Britney Spears song.
  • They've also covered Mel C's "I Turn To You".
  • "Freestyler" is also a semi-cover of Bomfunk MC's' song by the same name: the choruses are the same, the verses are different.
  • Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" is featured on the compilation album The Beat of Our Decay.
• Cyberpunk: Phantom Shadow.
• Deus est Machina: The apparent aim of the narrator of "Cybergenesis." It went about as well as you you might expect.
• Determinator: "Hero", among others.
• Digital Piracy Is Okay: They owe their success to the Internet and filesharing, as well as their reaction to the infamous Pirate Bay case to which they proudly proclaimed their support for the defendants and their website.
  • Moreover, their show at the Assembly is an official free release which can be obtained in high quality through a torrent on The Pirate Bay, uploaded by the band itself.
  • Rise of a Digital Nation was also officially available on The Pirate Bay from November 23rd to November 25th, 2012.
  • At MAGfest 2014, Rob announced on stage that if some of the audience hadn't heard of them before, not to worry because "our music is on the Pirate Bay."
• Eagleland: "Seventeen" definitely uses The Boorish variety, criticizing Iraq War era American foreign policy as being imperialism sold as liberation.
  "We bring you out from under tyranny / and into our economy"
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Compare "March of the Undead, Part II" to "Reanimator (March of the Undead, Part III)" and "Remnant (March of the Undead, part IV)". The difference between Part II's fast, upbeat music and the later parts' heavy, brooding tone is quite jarring.
  • Even stranger is the original "The March of the Undead"- which many fans don't realize even exists due to being a product of a previous foray at the band known as MASUGN- featuring near-indiscernible lyrics and a fast but heavy synth track throughout.
  • "Cryosleep" also counts as this, being the band's first song before they settled on a final style. It's decidedly more techno than metal.
• Epic Rocking: The band invokes this often. The "Sidology" episodes (Commodore 64 game cover medleys) last over 25 minutes in total, with part 2 weighing in at nearly 13 minutes. "Multiball", their medley of music from DICE's PC pinball games comes in at 6:45, and the album closers for both Deus Ex Machinae and Redeemer ("Machinae Prime" and "Empire", respectively) clock in at over 7 minutes. Many, many other tracks crack the 5 minute mark easily.
• Escapism: Discussed in regards to video games in "Player One".
  • Also the entire point of Persona, or at least the dangers of TOO much escapism.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Several songs, including "Insidious," "Kaori Stomp" (complete with spotty pronunciation) and "Force Feedback."
• Heavy Meta: Arguably for the songs that deal with the music industry and the band urging their fans to revolutionize it.
• Heavy Mithril:
  • A few examples of works their music is based on or references: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask ("Missing Link"), World of Warcraft ("Loot, Burn, Rape, Kill, Repeat"), Serial Experiments Lain ("The Wired"), He-Man ("Return to Snake Mountain"), The Great Giana Sisters ("The Great Giana Sisters"), Kid Icarus (1986) ("Sid Icarus"), Half-Life 2 ("Nova Prospekt"), Macross ("Laser Speed Force"), Death Note ("Shinigami") and Doctor Who ("All of My Angels" video).
  • Due to the nature of a Concept Album, they're not based on the games, but Phantom Shadow has songs titled "Perfect Dark" and "Beyond Good And Evil." "Hubnester Rising" was originally titled "Child of the Vault." Seeing as it's about an awakening evil, it could either be a reference to Fallout or Borderlands.
  • Averted with "Dark City". The song is completely unrelated to the movie of the same name, other than the title^note It's actually about the band's hometown, so titled because it can get pretty dim during winter months.
• I Want My Jetpack: Used to criticize religion in "A View From the End of the World":
  "600 years of progress lost because of you / Can I get reparations to make up for this abuse? / I want some flying cars, a ticket to the stars / Or even just a world without religious wars."
• Konami Code: At one time, entering the code on the band's website front page would bring up a download for the Epic Fan Pack, consisting of a few B-sides and alternate edits of older songs along with a handful of tracks off the then-unreleased A View From the End of the World album and the unreleased extra songs composed for the Gold Edition of Jets'n'Guns. A later total overhaul of the website removed the code and presumably the archive.
• Leet Lingo: "Thoroughly pwned" in "Nova Prospekt."
  • "Now is the time to prove that you are leet" in "Laser Speed Force."
• Lyrical Dissonance: "The Greatest Show on Earth" has a pretty sad-sounding melody especially in the vocals at the beginning, but really it's just a song about how awesome Facebook and its community are.
• Meaningful Name: Subverted with the "Steve" songs. Rob himself states that the name isn't meaningful by itself, but represents the fact that normal people can become heroes if they try hard enough.
  • The Jets 'n' Guns soundtrack features the song "Futuremachine"... as in "Future Machin(a)e", foreshadowing its appearance as a future song, "Reanimator".
• My Nayme Is: "Machinae" is pronounced the same way as "machine".
• Power Ballad: "Skin" breaks things up in the middle of Overworld... before kicking into high gear at the two-minute mark.
  • Played straight with "Flagcarrier" on Deus Ex Machinae and "Europa" on Phantom Shadow.
• Proud to Be a Geek: Dezo's forum user title flat out states "I am a geek!!".
• Protest Song:
  • "Seventeen" attacks American imperialist foreign policy.
  • "99" attacks the concept that the ultra wealthy had no one to help them get where they are.
  • "Legion of Stoopid" was made specifically to tell fans not to vote for George W. Bush in the 2004 US presidential election. The lyrics literally include the phrase "Don't vote for Bush!".
  • The entire March of the Undead series uses a zombie horde as a metaphor for blind religious or political zealotry.
• Redemption Rejection: Subverted in "The Villain of this Story", wherein the viewpoint character has immense trouble seeing the value that others see in them due to their troubled past. But, they find themselves able to make the effort to atone in part by valuing that judgement.
• Religion Rant Song: Several, including "A View From the End of the World," "Violator," and "Dreadnaught".
  • This is also the theme of the "March of the Undead" series, which compares religious followers to zombies. Specifically, "March of the Undead, pt II" criticizes those who push their religions on others and states that religion is used to control the masses, "Reanimator (March of the Undead, pt III)" criticizes heaven seekers and "Remnant (March of the Undead, pt IV)" criticizes the idea that God is benevolent, but still allows horrible things to happen.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: "Hate"
  • Return to Snake Mountain is about a man coming Back from the Dead to storm the aforementioned fortress and kill the Evil Minions inside.
• Rock Star Song: "Elite", basically an anthem for the band.
• Rule of Fun: Any song with the name "Steve" in it. They have that silly sound that manages to be both kiddy and awesome at the same time.
  • This is also the motivation behind their pop covers.
• Sampling: Used from time to time for vocal clips. They've sampled Pitch Black and Ghost in the Shell in "Cryosleep," Futurama in the Webography version of "Attack Music", The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings films in "Hybrid", Nemesis in "Earthbound" and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in "Action Girl".
  "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson"
• Spiritual Successor: To MASUGN, Garden of Concrete and LifeForce. All three were disbanded by the time Machinae Supremacy was founded. Rob was associated with the former two, and Kahl the latter.
  • Within the albums themselves, Phantom Shadow has "The Second One", a song with a similar atmosphere and theme to "Indescriminate Murder is Counter-Productive".
• Spoken Word in Music: The aforementioned vocal samples, as well as the Gratuitous Japanese part in "Force Feedback".
• Stage Names: The majority of their members through their history, including four current members are credited with nicknames.
• Take That!: Multiple against the RIAA and the mainstream music industry. The song "Legion of Stoopid" contains particularly nasty shots at a lot of things they're against including the RIAA, George W. Bush and Fox News.
• Tempting Fate: The beginning of "Need for Steve".
  "We'll give you complete creative control."
• The Unchosen One: "The Second One"
  "You know by now I'm not the one / But I can be the one you need"
  "So what if I am not the one / Whatever difference does it make? / You still believe that I will beat them anyway."
• Un-Installment: Subverted. The "March of the Undead" series starts at 2. However, part 1 was made under Robert's original attempt at music, MASUGN.
  • Sidology was originally just parts 1 and 3 before they made 2 later on.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: The singer of "Indiscriminate Murder is Counter-Productive" ruins his game by killing all the NPCs who could've allowed him to continue.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Their song "Indiscriminate Murder is Counter-Productive" is this take to the logical extreme.
• With Lyrics: To one of their own songs. "Sid Icarus" is "Flight of the Toyota" from the JNG soundtrack with lyrics added.
  • Similarly, "Reanimator" is a heavily remixed version of/uses elements taken from "Futuremachine", from the Jets 'n' Guns soundtrack.
  • "Throttle And Mask" and "Megascorcher" share a lot of elements, too.
  • "Empire" similarly is based off "Machinaeguns" and "Dududub Dududum".

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