No one does a better job of making The Dandy Warhols unlikable than The Dandy Warhols. Over the course of 17 years and eight studio albums, the Portland-based group has reigned over its own too-cool-for-school universe where Velvet-worship never gets old and a feud with the similarly solipsistic Brian Jonestown Massacre—documented in the 2004 documentary Dig!—seems compelling. Granted, greatness occasionally rises to the surface: 2000’s Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia was good fun, and 2003’s Welcome To The Monkey House succeeded thanks to the production work of Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes. Sadly, none of that reluctant charm is on display in This Machine, an undistinguished slog of an album that counts an atrocious cover of “16 Tons” as one of its many grating moments.
