The Oakland quartet have been producing groundbreaking Metal releases since the seminal ‘Burn My Eyes’ exploded them onto the scene in 1994. Resplendent with some of the heaviest guitar tones ever heard in metal and released the same year as Pantera's seminal Far Beyond Driven, AFI’s Answer That and Stay Fashionable and In Flames' Subterranean, Burn My Eyes crashed into the UK charts at number 25. Critical praise combined with 17 months of non-stop touring including a European headline tour that had them booked in the very same venues they had just supported Slayer, Burn My Eyes went on to become the biggest-selling debut in the history of Roadrunner Records at the time.
Their annihilating follow-up The More Things Change… would see the band expand their trademark sound, pushing the envelope even further as did the emotionally-charged shockwave that was their 3rd album, The Burning Red. While the band’s 4th effort Supercharger would produce such live concert favorites as “Bulldozer” and the harrowing “Trephination” - a fact solidly reinforced on their follow-up live album HellaLive (recorded at a sold-out 5000-capacity concert at London’s Brixton Academy), both the band and fans alike felt that Machine Head could push themselves harder, challenging themselves to forge something that was once again fresh and innovative.
Enter 2003’s Through the Ashes of Empires. Hailed by critics and fans alike as a metal masterpiece, Through the Ashes of Empires went on to become the 2nd-best selling record for Roadrunner Records Europe that year. Their two European headline tours of large and small theatres achieved stellar numbers, selling out nearly all shows in major markets throughout both continents. The band's European summer festival run included blistering appearances at Germany’s Rock Am Ring / Rock Am Park (as direct support to Korn and Evanescence), a show-stealing Donington performan