Through the Ashes of Empires is the fifth studio album by American heavy metal band Machine Head. On this album, the band returned to their groove/thrash metal sound that was featured on their debut album Burn My Eyes (1994) and their second album The More Things Change... (1997) after experimenting with the nu metal genre featured on their previous two albums. It was released in the UK, Europe and Australia on the Roadrunner Records International label on October 27, 2003.