The Secret Machines released their third album with the desire to revolutionize rock with their fresh, psychedelic tunes and non-conformist attitude. One problem: only half of the revolution succeeds.

The many songs of “Secret Machines” reveal two presiding patterns. First, the instrumentals in the majority of the songs are forceful and overwhelming. The sounds of the drums and guitar flood like tidal waves, the grasp of their power and intensity irresistible. Drummer Benjamin Curtis creates a steady beat that lays the foundation for the space-rock effect, while guitarist Josh Garza comes at you with the strings that are the heart and soul of The Secret Machines’ sound. At their concert, I would immediately jump out of my seat and wave a lighter side to side but then sit right back down when the lyrics begin.

Which brings us to the second pattern, which unfortunately cancels out the positives of the instrumentals. Brandon Curtis’ vocals weigh down the band’s potential brilliance. The lead singer’s attempts to instill religious undertones sound desperate at best. And his unchanging pitch bores a listener longing for some variance in the vocals.

Fortunately, the singing is so underwhelming and emotionlessly monotone at times that the guitar simply drowns out the disappointing lyrics. Throughout the album, I kept pleading for Brandon Curtis to shut up and let the instrumental take over. Only sparingly, as in “I Never Thought to Ask,” does the singing become forefront and mesh well with the background; however, at these times the music resembles the slow-dance songs played at my junior prom.

Songs with ballad-like guitar solos and commanding drumbeats, like “The Fire is Waiting,” are the obvious cream of the crop. And the vocals only provide variance when the voice is digitally altered in songs such as “Now You’re Gone.” The attempted singing is so weak that it causes the best song on the album, “Last Believer, Drop Dead,” to sound the least space-rock of them all, as the vocals disappointingly smooth out the edge created by the drums and guitar.

The bottom line of the album: The band’s spectacular instrumentals will not go unnoticed, but unfortunately, the vocals could not be kept a secret.