To ease the pain of waiting too long for a new album, Machine Head bring to us Hellalive. To choose the right album name, fans were being asked to come up with a suitable name. Alexander van de Velde came up with Hellalive and his entry was chosen. Except for the last two songs, this album was recorded on December 13, 2002 at the band’s Brixton Academy show in London. The last two songs were recorded during their performance at the With Full Force festival in Germany. Right before their European tour started, Machine Head lost their guitarist Ahrue Luster. Because of musical differences he left the band and Phil Demmel was his (temporarily) replacement during this tour. Happily enough this doesn’t change a thing about the energy being released during their live shows. Hellalive sets off with the punching “Bulldozer” and after Rob’s regular joke about the blood, the sweat and his beers, the band continues with classics like “Old”, “Ten Ton Hammer” and my personal favorite “I’m Your God Now”.

Although most of the songs, such as the almost-a-ballad “The Burning Red”, are from their last two albums (“The Burning Red” and “Supercharger”) this recording gives you a nice view on Machine Head’s impressive musical career so far. I don’t know why it took so long for this album to be released, but I can imagine spanning the gap between “Supercharger” and their yet untitled new album is probably the main reason. Colin Richardson was hired to mix the album and as you can expect he delivers quality on this recording. Maybe the drums aren’t always sounding as awesome as they should, but overall this is an impressive live-album. After a few overdubs this hell is coming alive and is ready to conquer your local record stores. Who said heaven existed?