Written by Ava Pettit
I never believed the fictional narratives of books such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K Dick, may be a reality I would soon have to face until I was shown a video of bunnies jumping on a trampoline. Initially, I innocently smiled, laughed even, and moved on unengaged just like any other video. But strangely enough, it was extremely popular, with over 200 million views and 20 million likes. I discovered later that the traction it had gained was not for the content itself, but rather the fact that millions of people had been tricked into thinking it was real, when, in actuality, it was an AI-generated video. This was a reality I was not prepared for, one where I fell for an AI video hook, line, and sinker. This reality is one where the founder, producer, and vocalist of Machine Girl, Matt Stephenson, has been screaming about for years through his music, yet now I finally find myself really listening to. Stephenson’s newest project, Psychowarrior: MG Ultra X, released on October 4th of this year, aims to continue his fight to “wake up” the masses.
MG Ultra, an album released just last year, begins this conversation of the drift in what is real and fake, pulling inspiration from writers like Phillip K Dick. Stephenson regarded it as a “reboot” of sorts, a “new beginning” for the project as it enters a new era. His newest iteration of this rebrand is this newest album, Psychowarrior: MG Ultra X, attempting to pick up where MG Ultra left off. Many were discontent with this new vibe, claiming it’s too polished for the raw sound Machine Girl got its footing with. However, I believe Psychowarrior and MG Ultra still reflect Stephenson’s original mission: to resist through experimentation.
The result of this goal is 14 tracks of digitally thrashed and distortion-scoured mutations of noise rock, nightcore-d EBM, hardcore, and other niche genres I definitely do not know, while often jumpcutting between sounds and styles within a single track. The album’s first track We Don’t Give a F*** is just that. Nobody cares, and nobody is engaging critically in anything anymore. This motif is more or less the thesis of the entire album, with Stephenson’s growing exhaustion with the status quo fester into full-on rage as the album progresses.
The album’s second track, Come On Baby, Scrape My Data is a play on the process of scraping data: the action of a computer program extracting information from a human user’s inputs. This kind of process has been performed on a large scale for the purpose of training AI models, which is controversial for more than just privacy concerns. The pre-chorus “Wanna know me, wanna own me?/ Wanna clone me?” is direct criticism of AI monitoring and using human data to imitate or, in some cases, attempt to perfectly replicate human creation. Also in the same prechorus, to put it tastefully, Stephenson makes it pretty clear that he is not a fan. His repetition of the lyric “Don’t be afraid/Come and take it” is practically daring these programs to go ahead and try it. His condemnation of AI extends to those who choose to use AI as a replacement for thinking on their own and being content with an imitation.
The album turns inward on the track ID Crisis Angel, taking a brief but blistering examination of identity in the digital age. The title itself embodies the tension at the heart of the track: the self is simultaneously unraveling (“ID Crisis”) and reaching for some form of transcendence or guidance (“Angel”). Over rapid-fire breakcore and distorted vocals, Stephenson yells lines like “Can’t find myself in this endless scroll”, capturing the disorientation of being trapped on your phone—immersed in a stream of content that blurs truth and illusion. Within Psychowarrior, it functions as a microcosm of the album’s central theme: resistance begins in the mind, even when reality itself feels uncertain.
Where Psychowarrior ultimately shines is on the tenth track Down to the Essence, where the message is crystallized. Musically shapeshifting, the track transitions from chaos to clarity. While tracks such as Rabbit Season and ID Crisis Angel wrestle with uncertainty and the collapse of all that is seemingly known, Down to the Essence seeks to rebuild. After weaving through the noise, the clouds of static part: “All day all night you ignore reality,” Stephenson writes. “So get down to the essence of the answers that you seek.” This line lands like a challenge; strip away the mindless consumption of content and products, and face what’s left.
That balance of satire and sincerity defines the record. Machine Girl weaponizes absurdity, using humor and over-stimulation to expose how entertainment numbs dissent. Each blast of noise insists on consciousness, on staying awake even when the world begs you to log off. By the finale, Psychowarrior feels like both a breakdown and a breakthrough. It’s confrontational and terrifying, like realizing the bunnies on your feed were never real, but the emotions they triggered were. Machine Girl’s genius is making that confusion feel vital, even revolutionary. In a culture addicted to distraction, Psychowarrior dares us to feel again, think again, and engage again.
The message and execution are solid, and overall, a fun listen. 9/10