The August Engine is the second studio album by the American progressive/heavy metal band Hammers of Misfortune.

Initially the band had difficulties finding a record label willing to publish the album, so it did not see an official release until September 16, 2003 through Italian record label Cruz Del Sur Music.

It was Enrico from Cruz Del Sur in Italy that eventually inquired about The August Engine.

"[1] The album revolves around a continued conversation between a microcosm and a macrocosm, where the latter is represented by the "August Engine", which is referred to as a society of individuals not too dissimilar from a religious cult, while the former takes the position of an individual caught up in the engine's great design.

At the end of the album, the entity that’s being put on trial is hard music itself, condemned and chopped up into pieces, destroyed.

"[1]Cobett also describes the tracks "Rainfall" and "A Room and a Riddle" as a metaphor for life itself.

[2] "Rainfall" in particular seems to be about the insignificance of individual human lives and how they can easily blend together like raindrops to form an "ocean".