Key in the ignition. Foot on the gas. It's time to Start the Machine. SoCal rock legends Fu Manchu crank things up again after a nearly three-year gap between studio albums with their most aggressive and pissed-off release to date. Start the Machine, their ninth studio album in 14
years, not only reflects the frustration the band went through following their previous label's demise, it represents a bold step forward in the evolution of its sound. You've never heard a Fu Manchu album that sounds like this before.

The years following the release of California Crossing (2002) were anything but idle for Fu Manchu. Drummer Brant Bjork left to pursue a solo career shortly after California Crossing was finished, so the band brought in longtime friend Scott Reeder (previously of Smile) and embarked on an eight-month tour. The newly revitalized quartet -rounded out by guitarist/vocalist Scott Hill, bassist Brad Davis and guitarist Bob Balch-recorded and released a live album in Europe, Go For It...Live (2003), and later issued the three-song Something Beyond EP (2004). The real
focus during this period, however, was on writing fresh material and finding a new label.

The band took on the former challenge-making a new album-with gusto. Given the rare luxury of being able to write without any looming recording deadlines to meet, Fu Manchu were able to try out new material while on tour and spend lots of time tweaking and improving songs when they were rehearsing at home. "It gave us a chance to try a bunch of stuff on songs we haven't done before-some slower stuff, some faster stuff," says Hill. "We just got a chance to live with the songs for awhile, which is something we've never had the chance to do in the past."

Demos of this new material soon led to a deal with DRT and Fu Manchu, armed with a dozen of the brashest and most aggro tunes culled from the 25 they had written, entered the studio with producer/engineer Brian Joseph Dobbs (Metallica, Mötley Crüe). Dobbs had been responsible for mixing Go For It...Live and the band was confident he would give them the sound to fit the material they had written. "He knew we wanted a more raw sound than our last record," explains Hill. However, it wasn't just
a raw sound the band was looking for, they wanted a producer who understood the band's music and could help them improve it. "He had a lot of really good ideas, arrangement-wise and vocally," says Reeder. "It's cool to work with someone who's completely enthusiastic and brings something to the table."

The results speak for themselves. Start the Machine sparks to life with Reeders's thunderous, tribal beat on the propulsive "Written in Stone," a song the drummer says set the standard for choosing material for the album. "They have to be fun to play-that was the litmus test for most of them," he explains. "Written in Stone" is also indicative of one of the other notable aspects of Start the Machine: huge, catchy choruses. Nearly every one of the concise, tight tunes (all clocking in well under the four-minute mark) features an instantly memorable chorus, augmented bystrong backing vocals by Davis and Reeder-from the hardcore inspired blast of "I Can't Hear You" to the slow paranoia of"Make Them Believe" and even the heaviness of "It's All the Same."

Fu Manchu have not so much changed their trademark fuzz-heavy sludge as they have merely taken their songwriting to a new level. The twelve tracks that constitute Start the Machine are dynamic, energetic and diverse-as if the band has something to prove after being left adrift without a label for two years. A feeling further enforced by the album's title itself. "Start the Machine is indicative of our desire to crank the whole Fu Manchu machinery back up and get it out in everybody's faces," says Reeder."We're very anxious to get this stuff out and wrap it around peoples' heads."

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