LA metal outfit Once Human have returned with new single Deadlock, bringing along guitarist Logan Mader’s former Machine Head bandmate Robb Flynn to guest on vocal duties.
The track finds Mader and co-guitarist – and chief riff-writer – Max Karon delivering a barrage of brutal drop-tuned riffs, while Flynn trades vocals with singer Lauren Hart.
Deadlock is the first release from the band's upcoming album Scar Weaver, which promises to be their heaviest record yet and is set for release in February 2022. It will be their first full-length effort since 2017's Evolution.
Describing the experience of having Flynn on the track, Hart says: “It was absolutely amazing, are you kidding? I didn’t believe it was happening until he sent something back and I heard his voice on our song. I was like, ‘Holy crap! This is real!’ He came back with a new chorus, and it was so much better than mine, so my chorus was gone.
“But then performing with him in the video, that was insane. The energy he brings onstage, he brings in person, too. It was a great experience, and his energy is so powerful. The video came out amazing!”
Mader played alongside Flynn in Machine Head for eight years, appearing on debut outing Burn My Eyes in 1994 and its follow-up The More Things Change… in 1997. The guitarist left the band in 1998 to pursue other musical projects, although he temporarily rejoined in 2019 for a 25th anniversary tour of Burn My Eyes.
That same year, Flynn announced that Wacław Kiełtyka, of Swedish death-metallers Decapitated, would be filling the full-time Machine Head guitar vacancy.
