Their early albums "Burn My Eyes" and "The More Things Change..." show a groove metal and thrash metal approach, similar to bands like Pantera and Exhorder. The albums also featured technical drumming by Chris Kontos and Dave McClain. The band changed their musical direction for the albums "The Burning Red" (1999) and "Supercharger" (2001), which have been described as displaying a nu metal sound. These albums featured rapping by Robb Flynn and simpler guitar riffs, but retaining part of their aggressive sound. This change in direction resulted in criticism from many fans because of the popularity of nu metal at the time. Machine Head returned to the groove metal and thrash metal sound of the first two albums with "Through the Ashes of Empires" (2004).