(written by Islander)
“If you dislike the American healthcare system, have had issues with doctors, or have ever had problems with health insurance, boy do I have a song for you….”
That’s how Colin Busse from Rochester, NY begins to introduce the latest song from his collaborative metal project The Omen Machine. The name of this new one, which we’re premiering today with a video in advance of its November 14 release, is “Delay, Deny, Defend,” a title derived from a book of the same name by Jay Feinman, which excoriates the self-serving, profit-directed behavior of U.S. insurance companies.
Deplorable recent events here in the U.S. have put the affordability of healthcare on the front burner of lots of people’s minds, and so the timing of The Omen Machine’s new single could hardly be more on-point.
Colin Busse adds this explanation: “Of course the murder of the United Healthcare CEO really sparked the interest, but this [book] really started to form the perspective from which it was written. Whether you like Rogan or hate him, you do not hate the healthcare industry enough.”
As noted above, The Omen Machine is a collaborative project, and its lineup changes from song to song. Here are the performers on the one you’re about to hear:
Vocals – Bautista Argüello
Guitars, Bass – Colin Busse
Guitar – Dan Fili
Guest Lead Guitar – Xuhao
Drums – MacBook, in collaboration with Colin Busse and Anthony Caccamise
The song’s lyrics are vicious, the greedy spew of a corporate strategist focused on increasing the profits of healthcare companies and insurers, customers (patients) be damned — “Vermin beneath a vile engine churning profit from disease / The machinery of an industry bending to the will of greed.”
The video (directed, edited, and produced by Colin Busse, and filmed by Michael Niger [ShortBearMedia]) rams the message home with the performers dressed as doctors and self-congratulatory corporate executives flush with cash. And it also shows the grim human cost of the system that the song indicts, and the rebellion it incites.
The song itself furiously surges into an intersection of technical death metal, melodic death metal, and deathcore. The music’s rage explodes through brutal guttural roars, maniacal screams, bludgeoning grooves, and savage fretwork frenzies that generate head-spinning permutations.
The song also includes an early (and ecstatic) spider-fingered guitar solo by Xuhao and sequences of equally fleet and feverish arpeggios. But the music also gets grim and desperate in its moods, reflected in part through groaning but also hard-slugging breakdowns that will get listeners’ heads hammering.
And on top of all that, the song the music expands to extravagant heights, just in time for another guitar solo (this time by Colin Busse) that’s both a fireworks display and a channel of exotic but wrenching melody. And later the melody seems to wail in agony.
Just as a gun is about to fire near the video’s end, the band finally deliver the song’s most cold, bleak, and brutally punishing breakdown of them all.
“Delay, Deny, Defend” was written and recorded by Colin Busse, with vocals recorded by Bautista Argüello. The song was mixed and mastered by Jon Howard. For more info and to stream the song, check out the links below.
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/theomenmachine/delay-deny-defend-feat-bautista-argello–xuhao
https://linktr.ee/theomenmachine
https://theomenmachine.com/
https://theomenmachine.bandcamp.com/album/criminals-ep
https://www.facebook.com/TheOmenMachine
https://www.instagram.com/the.omen.machine/