Selfish Machines

Selfish Machines is Pierce the Veil leaning into excess with conviction. Produced by Vic Fuentes and Mike Green, the band’s second album builds on the theatrical post-hardcore of A Flair for the Dramatic, but pushes further outward, folding emo, prog rock and experimental flourishes into something restless, dramatic and proudly overstuffed.

Vic Fuentes frames the record around human selfishness, not as a flaw, but as instinct. That idea gives the album its emotional charge. These are songs about desire, obsession, grief, family, guilt and the strange ways love can become both shelter and damage. ‘Caraphernelia’, featuring Jeremy McKinnon, turns leftover possessions into emotional shrapnel, while ‘Bulletproof Love’ disguises one of Fuentes’ darkest lyrical ideas inside one of the album’s most accessible melodies.

The record is at its best when it lets melodrama run wild. ‘Besitos’ opens with Latin-influenced colour and sharp emotional perspective, while ‘The Boy Who Could Fly’ stretches into punk urgency and romantic desperation. ‘Stay Away from My Friends’ offers a necessary pause at the centre, built around piano and distance, before the album pulls itself back into chaos.

There are moments where Selfish Machines nearly buckles under its own ambition. The production occasionally overreaches, particularly in its use of Auto-Tune, and Fuentes’ vocals will always divide listeners. But that intensity is also what makes the album work. It sounds young, wounded and impatient, but rarely careless.

By the time ‘The Sky Under the Sea’ closes the record, Pierce the Veil have made their point. Selfish Machines is not fully refined, but it is alive with ideas. Its messy ambition became part of its charm, and years later, its Gold certification feels less like a surprise than a delayed recognition of how deeply these songs lodged themselves into the band’s world.