Machine Head released “These Scars Won't Define Us” on November 15, 2024, through Nuclear Blast. The single put their 2025 North American tour bill into one recording, with In Flames, Lacuna Coil and Unearth contributing vocals. An official lyric video accompanied the collaboration.
The tour had been announced earlier that week, and Nuclear Blast presented the song as a preview of the four bands sharing the road. The collaboration gave listeners a chance to hear the announced bill together months before its spring dates. The digital single, also billed as the tour version, packed those contributions into three minutes and 32 seconds.
That collective approach fits the song's subject. Its lyrics move through anxiety, damaged confidence and the effort to release old grudges, then turn toward solidarity and refusing to let past wounds determine what comes next. With several bands taking part, the title reads as a shared declaration.
The song also opened the campaign for the follow-up to 2022's ØF KINGDØM AND CRØWN. When it arrived, the next Machine Head album was being discussed as an April 2025 release. Its compact running time offered an early example of the discipline Robb Flynn was applying to the new material. In a 2025 interview with Guitar World, he explained that repeating the previous record's approach held little appeal. “I put some structures on the songs that would force me to work differently,” he said.
Flynn set himself three writing targets: songs under four minutes, at least one key change, and a final chorus whose musical arrangement differed from the earlier choruses. That last requirement could mean changing key or removing a guitar or drum part while keeping the vocal intact. He described shortening introductions and midsections and tightening the leads as he adjusted to the restrictions. The aim was to change how he built a song, with the arrangement doing more work inside a smaller space.
The wider album took shape across a longer recording period, from July 2023 through December 2024. Work took place at Robb's Jam Room, Sharkbite Studios and Drop Of Sun Recording. That schedule places the single's arrival before the end of the album sessions: the collaboration was introducing the next record while work on it continued.
Machine Head announced the title UNATØNED in February 2025 alongside “UNBØUND.” Their eleventh studio album followed on April 25, 2025, with “These Scars Won't Define Us” placed sixth in its 12-track running order.
