While 2004’s Start the Machine is powered by the vintage fuzz that had always been Fu Manchu’s stock-in-trade, songs like “Written in Stone,” “Hey,” and “I’m Getting’ Away” adopt a more direct and modernistic attack. It’s as if the band decided to leave behind their obsession with the '70s and instead focus on grabbing the attention of a living, breathing rock culture. The album has as much appeal for fans of Foo Fighters and Avenged Sevenfold as it does fans of Blue Cheer. At the same time they offer “Out to Sea,” an instrumental that momentarily abandons heaviness for a dreamy vision of surf.