Machine Girl PsychoWarrior: MG Ultra X review: a noisy teenage riot

If you heard Machine Girl‘s 2012 debut WLFGRL, it was probably due to a message board recommendation or a momentary glitch in YouTube’s algorithm. The music’s manic combination of mutant footwork, rave, and breakbeats had a radioactive glow that all great cult works possesses, repelling most and hypnotizing the few with its toxic warmth. In some ways, the story of the New York band’s emergence is a case study of the last good days of the internet; over ten years and several full-lengths later, online isn’t far from their thoughts on their latest LP, PsychoWarrior: MG Ultra X.

As their notoriety grew, Machine Girl sought to do for Atari Teenage Riot’s digital hardcore what Nine Inch Nails did for industrial: bring a keen and unabashed affection for pop into the noise without smoothing out the edges too finely. Now a trio with the addition of guitarist Lucy Caputi, Machine Girl embrace metal and noise rock closer than ever before.

There’s a new kind of visceral feeling in the songs as a result. The guitar opener “We Don’t Give A Fuck” hits with a gravelly stomp as Matt Stephenson offers more endearingly churlish, winking broadsides from a brain atrophied by quick dopamine hits and encroaching dystopia. Tracks like “Psychowar” and “ID Crisis Angel” dig their fingers into post-punk deep enough to draw real blood, but the standout is “Phantom Doom” for the tragic shoegaze-y melodies emerging through MG’s go-to production techniques of warps and glitches.

PsychoWarrior: MG Ultra X has more than enough to satisfy acolytes of the Machine Girl’s original form. There’s plenty of cornered-animal electronic mayhem delivered at the speed of a montage from Tetsuo: The Iron Man. But in context it feels rejuvenated, like a new battery has been improbably out of our trash island world.