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This Machine
This Machine
Studio album by The Dandy Warhols
Released	April 24, 2012
Recorded	May–November 2011
Length	43:02
Label	Beat the World; The End;
Producer	The Dandy Warhols; Jeremy Sherrer;
The Dandy Warhols chronology
Singles from This Machine
	"Well They're Gone"; Released: March 1, 2012;

This Machine is the eighth studio album by American rock band The Dandy Warhols. It was released on April 24, 2012, by record label The End. The album features a more stripped-down, laid-back style than much of the band's previous work.

Background and recording

While playing at Sydney's Enmore Theatre in May 2011 as part of their 2011 Australian tour, lead singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor announced the new album would be titled This Machine and is to be released in February 2012 (Taylor-Taylor had previously jokingly announced it as The Pastor of Muppets,^[1] Shitty Shitty Band Band^[2] or Whirled Piece^[3] in blog posts on the band's official website).^[4] On the same tour, the band debuted two new songs which would later appear on the album, "Seti vs. the Wow! Signal" and "Rest Your Head".^[5]

This Machine was recorded between May and November 2011.

The band collaborated with ex-Bauhaus member David J on the track "The Autumn Carnival"; J co-wrote the song and supplied backing vocals and bass guitar to the track.

Release

The band announced the release of the album's first single, "Well They're Gone", on their website on March 1, 2012, allowing visitors to download the track for free after entering their email address.^[6] A music video for the track "Sad Vacation" was released to YouTube on April 20.

This Machine was released on April 24, 2012.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	50/100^[7]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	^[8]
The A.V. Club	D^[9]
Robert Christgau	^[10]
Classic Rock	^[11]
Consequence of Sound	^[12]
Pitchfork	5.1/10^[13]
PopMatters	4/10^[14]

The album has received a mixed response from critics.^[7] Benjamin Aspray of PopMatters wrote "Like reformed alcoholics who were more fun when they drank, This Machine is alternately sullen and unconvincingly earnest, and inoffensive to a fault. [...] As the appropriately titled The Dandy Warhols Are Sound—the pre-Nick Rhodes version of Welcome to the Monkey House—made abundantly clear, a stripping down does not become them. They're an object lesson in self-conscious style as substance, and that's the fun of it!" Pitchfork gave it a 5.1/10 grade, their highest rating for a Dandy Warhols since 1997's ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down, calling it "the most sober Dandy Warhols album to date, reining in the stoner rock sprawl, the curled-lip snark and bad puns endemic to so many Dandys releases", but "an all-too-fitting descriptor of a band going through the motions", commenting that frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor "just sounds bored".^[13] The A.V. Club called it "an undistinguished slog of an album".^[9]

AllMusic, on the other hand, gave it a positive review, writing "It's the closest the band has come yet to something genuinely uplifting and irony-free – no small feat for these tongue-in-cheek provocateurs, but This Machine suggests that the Dandy Warhols are actually improving with age, which is an even bigger accomplishment."^[8] Stephen Dalton in his review for the magazine Classic Rock writes that the band sounds "refreshed and rebooted" and the album "is possibly their best yet", despite ultimately being "a triumph of inventive arrangements and lush production over songwriting."^[11]

Track listing

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Sad Vacation"	Brent DeBoer, Courtney Taylor-Taylor	4:27
2.	"The Autumn Carnival"	Taylor-Taylor, David J	4:00
3.	"Enjoy Yourself"	Taylor-Taylor	3:01
4.	"Alternative Power to the People"	DeBoer, Taylor-Taylor	2:45
5.	"Well They're Gone"	Taylor-Taylor	4:15
6.	"Rest Your Head"	Taylor-Taylor, Miles Zuniga	4:12
7.	"16 Tons" (Merle Travis cover)	Merle Travis	2:08
8.	"I Am Free"	Taylor-Taylor	4:07
9.	"Seti vs. the Wow! Signal"	Taylor-Taylor	3:17
10.	"Don't Shoot She Cried"	DeBoer, Zia McCabe	5:53
11.	"Slide"	DeBoer	4:57

iTunes bonus track
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
12.	"Kiss Off" (Violent Femmes cover)	Gordon Gano	2:51

Personnel

The Dandy Warhols

Courtney Taylor-Taylor – vocals and electric guitar
Peter Holmström – electric guitar and backing vocals
Zia McCabe – keyboards
Brent DeBoer – drums, percussion and backing vocals

Additional personnel

David J – backing vocals and bass guitar on "The Autumn Carnival"
Steve Berlin – baritone saxophone on "16 Tons"
Kat Gardiner – Theremin on "Well They're Gone"
Daniel Lamb – trombone on "I Am Free"
Katie Presley – trumpet on "I Am Free"
Taylor Aglipay – tenor saxophone on "I Am Free"

Technical

Tchad Blake – mixing
Jeremy Sherrer – engineering at The Odditorium
Tim Johnston – Drums, backing vocals recorded at Coloursound Recording Studio, Melbourne, Australia)
Mat Robins – engineering
Adam Ayan – mastering at Gateway Mastering, Portland, Maine
Sean Gothman – album design and layout
Hickory Mertasching – album cover painting
Dan Kivitka – album cover photography
Steve Birch – additional album cover production
Elliot Lee Hazel – sleeve band portraits