Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Why not? If we actually took this adage seriously, we’d have far more coverless books and records like Periphery’s Clear album hitting the shelves. Maybe it’s the graphic designer in me that can’t help but take issue with a musician/videographer/author putting together a body of work and disregarding the one single visual piece they have to capture an author’s attention. Beyond the artist’s name and work’s title, the cover has the most power for someone to decide if they’re even mildly interested in learning more.

I don’t necessarily think the best albums need award-winning covers, but they should at least have good covers. I can admit that the transmission of vision between, say, an average album of 30 minutes of words and lyrics can only be conveyed so well in one single image. In many cases, the band isn’t making the art themselves and there’s another layer of abstraction. But when there’s alignment between the art and music, something magical happens. In some cases, you guess the musical style just from the art itself. An album doesn’t need a great cover to succeed, but it should have one on par with its own music.

Dawning Eyes by Blood Machine somehow captures the spookiness, desolation, and mystery of its content in its cover. I would describe the mood as unsettling; a sole decaying building lingers over what appears to be a desert backdrop. I can’t make out if the sun is setting or rising, but it’s clear that this precise moment lingers somewhere between darkness and light. The building falls somewhere between existing and not. This, in my mind, is scarier than pictures of vampires or fire. It is the terrifying reality of the passage of time, the decay and dissolution of generations. What was this building? What happened to it? The horrors we cannot understand are far more fearsome than those we can conceptualize.

All of this sets the stage for the synth-heavy experimental folk of Death Machine. I can only liken the group to the electrocoustic mastery of the now-defunct Canadian group Yes We Mystic or perhaps the softness of Sufjan Stevens if he was a bit more depressed. There is a barrenness under the vocals, often accompanied by synthesizers that roar or sound like hammers clanging in a factor. I’d maybe even make a comparison to the Majora’s Mask soundtrack. Is this a folk album? Industrial? Something else entirely? The clanging percussion percussion and haunting instrumentation does, however, feel like watching the ghosts of the building on the cover art resume the work of their past lives.

But, just as the cover deals in duality, so do the songs. “Beat the Drums” sees lyrics about sparrows, with appropriate chirp-like synths in the background. There’s even a bit of a surf rock pulse. The track manages to be menacing, featuring a drum beat that feels like a racing pulse, that is overtaken by a wall of noise. But the softness of the vocals keep these songs from even reaching pure despair.

It’s worth noting this is a lengthy album at 19 tracks. Even among the most ambitious of concept bands, albums tend to max at around 12-15 tracks. Unlike these other bands, the songs on this album are the length of your average radio singles (excluding “Black Holes” and “Morning Light”). That doesn’t make the album any less longer, but it does mean there’s more clear delineation in the listening experience. There are even a few tracks under 3 minutes which move fairly quickly. And even in the more folky moments, layered vocal harmonies and assorted bleeps and bloops add just enough texture to keep things from getting sleepy.

“The Offer” is a good example. At it’s core, it’s a single guitar line with some slight percussion, but it never feels dull. Instead, it manifests images of an interstellar traveler trying to get a transmission from home.

In stark contrast, the dancey and bright synths of “Found a House” immediately after make it one of the brightest songs on the album. Here, it’s dissonance in the vocals, not the instrumentation, that provides the darker edge. Take any song from the record and add or remove any single part and the emotional space will change drastically.

On the same note, it’s worth noticing that while Death Machine’s sound is undeniably modern, they certain pay homage to earlier groups from the 70s and 80s. “Modern Man,” ironically, feels like a nod to the 1985 hit, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears. And while the late album “The Disco Song” is in fact not in the disco style, it still recounts the experience of going out dancing. Beyond some of the electronic influences, there are even hints of country and soulful rock reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac (see the title track for a good example).

As far as good modern alternative rock numbers, “Free Soloing” is the definitive example. It’s a bass-heavy track with a strong percussive presence. The vocals are still airy but there’s a bit more intensity and urgency here. Things slow down in the middle of the track, but everything comes back around for a full end. Again, you’ve got machinery-like synths and piano chord drops that which manage to paint the track with a light quote of cosmic horror.

Death Machine keep listeners guessing. “Black Holes” is a lengthy, progressive folk number. It’s followed by the dance number “Morning Light,” a song that shows Death Machine’s prowess for rhythmic complexity. If the first half of the record is a bit more amorphous and barren, the latter half sees the band coloring in all the lines with an increasing degree of genre influences. Now, a different question arises about the cover. Who says this was in a desolate place at all? How many run-down buildings are right around us? Just like the cover, the album’s songs are framed to tell a story from a specific angle. And by the end of “Years,” the album’s closing track, I can’t help but feel like just maybe the sun was rising on the cover all along.