New World Man announce the debut album I Am The Machine with its title track

New World Man have confirmed a first full-length album, I Am The Machine, and put out the title track alongside the announcement. Stereogum reports the news, and describes the band as possibly the most berserk of the several projects its founder is currently running.

That founder is Mike Shaw, a guitarist based in New York's Hudson Valley, and the reason a debut from a band this obscure gets written up at all is his track record. Shaw wrote some of the sharpest riffs in recent hardcore for Mindforce, a band whose influence on the current wave of heavy music is out of proportion to its size.

He has spent the years since spreading that output across projects rather than concentrating it. Sentinel and Colossus have both taken his attention, and Fatal Realm, his death metal-influenced band, has been working the festival circuit hard this year. New World Man arrives into that crowded schedule as the one with the fewest brakes on it.

The title track is the only music from the record out so far, and the album title itself does some of the work: I Am The Machine reads as a statement about the method as much as the subject, from a guitarist who keeps four bands moving at once. No release date, label or tracklist has been given.

There is a structural point buried in this. Hardcore and its neighbouring genres run on musicians who play in several bands rather than one, which spreads risk, keeps studios busy and gives a scene more records than its population should produce. Shaw is an unusually productive example rather than an exception, and a debut album from his fourth or fifth outfit is the system working as intended.

The same Monday brought another announcement from the heavy underground, with Artificial Brain naming their album Antillia and sharing a song from it. Our release calendar carries the dated records, and the metal hub has the rest of the week.