Become

If Man Made Machine's Become doesn't sound like a debut album, it may be because the five members of the hard rock band from Phoenix, Arizona, have known each other since elementary school and began playing together in high school. They are some years out of school now, however, and it was only a chance meeting with a music executive in a restaurant where bass player Justyn Sena was working that led to management and recording deals. But if the band sounds seasoned, it also reflects the older-but-wiser frustrations of not-so-young men wondering if their big break would ever come. "I was an angel at ten years, a devil at 17," gruffly sings Joe Cotela in "Angels and Devils," "Now I'm somewhere in between." ("Lucky I'm still alive," he adds.) He and his bandmates want to make it clear that they retain much of that devilish aspect, as Cotela proclaims himself a liar and a thief as a romantic come-on in the lead-off track, called, naturally, "Liar and a Thief." Still, they feel victimized ("Victim") and paranoid ("Paranoid"), and they have plenty of resentment to express, not only in Cotela's voice, which occasionally ascends into a howl, but also in the aggressive rock playing that borders on heavy metal. That resentment sometimes seems self-directed as much as aimed at others, but either way, it fuels some well-played, if not particularly original rock music.