Returning to Fear Factory
Originally published August 20152015 has surprisingly been a fruitful year for album releases of some of my favorite bands of both the past and the present. When it comes to my preferences in metal music, it's been a slow evolution that has led me to the broad palette I now have. It started with the trash of the 90s and early 2000s that managed to be frequently featured on MTV's TRL. I always had a taste for the progressive side, however, which I feel has consistently pushed me into trying other sub-genres over the years and has led me to where I am, musically speaking.
To give a little insight into my perspective, here are my 3 favorite metal bands of this moment: Tool, Lamb of God, and Meshuggah. Tool has long been a band that I enjoyed and that managed to become my number 1 favorite over the past few years as repeated listenings have continued to reopen my eyes to the complexity of their songs and lyrics.
Lamb of God was the heavy/death metal band that I hold responsible for pushing me over the edge into the rougher metal genres. I had skirted the line with metal in the past, wanting some melodic singing to go with my growls. Then I listened to As the Palaces Burn and Ashes of the Wake. After that, I wanted to listen to whatever I could find that mirrored their scratchy vocals, ominous bass-lines, and cacophonous drum beats.
Meshuggah is the wildcard here. When I first listened to Meshuggah, I didn't care for them, partially because I couldn't wrap my mind around a band that was intentionally playing to such a different rhythm (Jazz had never been my thing either). Though, there were still a few stand-out tracks that hooked me and kept my interest in the band (Neurotica / Rational Gaze). When they released Obzen, I was able to bridge the mental gap and realize what I had been missing. Since then, every album they've released so far has only been better than the last. I've since gone back to the beginning to soak it all in.
Further down the road, I may review each of these band's albums and the impact they've had on my musical tastes. But for now, I want to actually talk about the one that was once my favorite band and how it relates. All three of these bands are releasing an album within the span of the next year (supposedly; who knows with Tool). Lamb of God already has with their recent LP Strum und Drang and Meshuggah is scheduled to release one early next year. Well, there is another metal band that just released an album recently which happened to be a heavy influence in my metal preferences. I mentioned how Lamb of God had gotten me into the heavier and darker metal than I had previously attempted, but there was one band that was helping me bridge the gap before this. From 2002-2007 Fear Factory resided in my #1 spot.
Fear Factory, for those who don't know, was first formed in the late 1980s. It was one of the godfather bands of death metal that emerged from the 80s with a dark and fast sound reminiscent of Testament and Slayer mixed with industrial sounds similar to bands like Ministry and early Nine Inch Nails.
Throughout the years, Fear Factory went through several significant lineup changes with some members getting kicked out and returning to kick others out. The sound of the band went through its share of overhauls as well; not all of which have been for the best. In recent releases, the band has remained more consistent in its sound, perhaps showing some maturity and a desire to stay closer to a specific sound instead of trying to keep up with trends at the whim of the record labels. The industrial sound has remained relatively consistent throughout their discography, but there is a fair amount of time in FF's history that the band was trying to adapt to changing tastes in the genre and ended up sounding a little worse for it.
I feel like I knew these guys in high school…
Nonetheless, in those years shortly after leaving high school, I was all about Fear Factory. My good friend had let me borrow his metal collection and put them onto my computer. I then placed the, at the time, massive 20 GB of music on my huge mp3 player. Over a long Thanksgiving break, in a snowed-in cabin, I listened to Fear Factory's collection from front to back and became hooked. At the time, I loved how they had gone from something as grainy and raw as Soul of the New Machine and Concrete to the fast-paced industrial masterpiece Demanufacture, to the crisp catchy Obsolete, to the harmonious Digimortal. At least those were my opinions at the time. In fact, since I was still early in my metal-morphosis, I was more partial to the clean vocals tracks of FF, so I was drawn more to Digimortal and Obsolete.
Then they released Archetype, an album that managed to return to the heavier sound without compromising the melody. Archetype quickly became my favorite album and stayed the best in my mind for quite some time. As I matured out of my teens, I found my favorite songs on the album switching from catchy simple songs like Drones and Archetype to rougher and aggressive ones like Slave Labor, Bonescraper, and Cyberwaste. That's when I decided to go back and listen to the band all over again. Sure enough, my opinion of what the best was changed entirely. Suddenly I realized how much better Demanufacture was to everything and how stale and empty Digimortal was. In fact, I had unknowingly stopped listening to Digimortal almost entirely by the time I went through the albums again.
A very short time later, Fear Factory released Transgression, a disjointed and unfinished album that I ate up due to my blind fandom. To promote the release, they went on tour with Soilwork, Strapping Young Lad (with whom they shared the bassist), and Darkane. I saw them at the Pound in SF (RIP) and it was the first big-name metal concert I attended. It was fantastic!
However, as time went on, I stopped listening to Fear Factory as much and started branching out more and more with my music choices. By the time Mechanize had come out, I had not listened to a single Fear Factory album the whole way through in over 2 years and didn't even know they'd released a new album. Likewise, I was completely unaware of The Industrialist's release until much later. However, with my attempts to stay more in tune with metal music as it releases and reading reviews at insightful and clever websites like yourlastrites.com, I learned that Fear Factory has released yet another album: Genexus.
To coincide with this event, I've decided to dust off my collection and listen to it all once again and rank them from top to bottom in my personal list. If you've been looking to get into an industrial metal band and have never listened to Fear Factory, let this list be your guide!
Demanufacture
There is not one FF album better. Right away this album comes out roaring with the titular track, grabs hold of you, and doesn't let go till Dog Day Sunrise to let you soar along with it. It grabs you once more with Body Hammer and brings you back down to earth with blinding speed in H-K. It only finally lets go to allow the dust to settle with its final track.
Demanufacture is fast, fun, and satisfying. With the obvious mechanical sounds and the repetitive lyrics to emphasize the feeling of being on an assembly line, Demanufacture remains the best 2 decades after its release. It became my favorite album years ago and even though I don't listen to the band much anymore, if I hear a song off Demanufacture, I can't help but turn the volume up.
Standout tracks:
Demanufacture
Zero Signal
New Breed
H-K (Hunter-Killer)
Mechanize
15 years since Demanufacture, Mechanize was released to a surprising amount of praise. Many listeners hailed it as the spiritual successor to the band's 1995 hit and I agree. Though I admittedly have not listened to the album as much as the rest, since I'm not nearly as interested in the band as I once was, I have come to the conclusion that this is a top contender.
Mechanize marked the return of the original guitarist Dino Cazares and you can tell, just from how raw the sound was again. With how stale their songs had gotten with Transgression, Mechanize provided a breath of fresh air. The opening track still gets me pumped from the high-pitched screams of Burton C Bell and the opening of Christploitation still evokes a creepy quality to it. This album managed to reinvigorate and reinvent the band once more. All the releases since then have followed a similar style and sound, which I prefer. Of all the times Fear Factory has reinvented itself, I'm glad they settled on this sound.
Standout tracks:
Mechanize
Fear Campaign
Christploitation
Genexus
I'm a little conflicted about the newest entries. The main reason is that they're probably the FF albums I've listened to the least. Yet, from what I've heard each time, I tend to like them a lot more than most of the earlier albums. I definitely think the band has been much more consistent and fun to listen to since their Mechanize rebirth.
That being said, I think a fair amount of Genexus sounds like Digimortal. You might think that's a bad thing, but I tend to believe a lot of the songs here have been sitting around in the backlog for a while looking for a new face and a new home since that album was so disappointing. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the album Digimortal was supposed to be. I've only listened to it a couple of times because I don't own it and was lucky to catch it on a YouTube stream, but what I heard was catchy and aggressive. Digimortal had its catchy riffs but ended up being bland and boring. Genexus feels like an attempt to fix that and it succeeds, for the most part.
Again, I haven't heard it enough to formulate a really solid opinion of it, but I can't help but put it above some of the rest here due to my appreciation for the new Fear Factory sound.
Standout tracks:
Soul Hacker
Protomech
Genexus
Obsolete
Obsolete, while certainly not as classic as Demanufacture, is still a decent entry in the band's history. Overall, I think Obsolete holds up a lot better than I expected it to. While I think the more melodic tracks of Archetype have aged poorly and do more damage to the album than good, I think Obsolete uses the melodic tracks to its strength.
The slower, softer songs fit with the theme and rhythm of the album. If there were a weak track on the album, I'd actually say it would be the "heaviest" track Obsolete. It seems a little out of place. The song is confusing and it sounds like the band didn't know what they wanted to do with it other than make it "heavy." Everyone is trying to play off beat from one another like they're trying to recapture a song off the previous album and failing at it.
As for the rest of the album, I think it was a decent follow-up to Demanufacture, though not anywhere near as exciting. It was definitely a lot more approachable to a wider audience, but that made some of the hooks more catchy and satisfying to hear. Its main issue is that it starts strong and slowly starts to lose momentum. However, as the songs slow to accommodate that deceleration, it doesn't feel like a waste by the end as you might expect.
Standout tracks:
Shock
Edgecrusher
Freedom or Fire
Cars (cover)
The Industrialist
The Industrialist has gotten a lot of hate, but I don't think it deserves it. Between the two concept albums, Obsolete manages to etch out The Industrialist. That being said, and I'm probably in the minority here, I'd rather listen to this album front to back (excluding the last nonsense track). This is mainly because of how I prefer the new FF sound more and I'd like to leave some of the 90s styles in the past. However, that doesn't change the fact that I agree with the main criticism I've heard about the album: it's a bit forgettable.
The main difference between the two albums (besides time) is that Obsolete had peaks and valleys of quality that made it a little more memorable and exciting. When Obsolete is at its best, it's a much better album, but at its worst, it slips quite a bit. The Industrialist is at a consistent stream of "pretty good," but doesn't gain much of an identity in the process. Much like Obsolete, I think it suffers as a decent album that couldn't even come close to following up an incredible one.
Standout tracks:
Recharger
Depraved Mind Murder
Concrete/Soul of a New Machine
I lumped the two albums together mainly due to the fact that they share so many of the same songs or song titles. The production quality may be significantly different in terms of their final release and re-release versions, but the genre and the songs are very much the same.
This is perhaps the rawest the band has ever been with Bell's vocals consisting almost entirely of scratchy screams and deep growls. His melodic singing which he would come to use more and more with time is barely to be found on these albums.
I'm surprised how much more I like them now than I have in the past. When I was more obsessed with the band, I often ignored these entries, but that's changed with my taste. The albums have actually ended up being a little more timeless than I had expected. The fast, short tracks with blistering blast beats can, in fact, be used as evidence to name Fear Factory as one of the pioneers for the Grindcore and Deathcore sub-genres of metal with these songs; for better or for worse.
While I occasionally like how Concrete's spooky echo on the vocals adds to the effect of the songs, I'd say Soul of a New Machine is the better release.
Standout tracks:
Big God/Raped Souls (Concrete version)
Martyr
Scapegoat
Scumgrief
Archetype
This album has not aged as well as I would have hoped for my once favorite. Still, it's a decent entry. There are some powerful hooks on this release with Slave Labor and Cyberwaste still managing to be the tracks that pull me into the album right up to the simple, but catchy Drones.
The titular track, however, is where the album loses me a bit. The song is so poppy in its sound, that I can't help but cringe a little bit when I hear it. Corporate Cloning manages to start reeling me in again, but Bite the Hand that Bleeds evokes similar cringes. The quality is up and down throughout this album. The main bumps in the ride come in the middle and the end.
Standout tracks:
Slave Labor
Cyberwaste
Bonescraper
Corporate Cloning
Transgression
Transgression is a really significant dip in quality on this list. While Obsolete, Archetype, and The Industrialist had their flaws, they were relatively consistent with their sound throughout the album and felt like part of a complete project. Transgression has 3-4 good tracks, 2 covers, and some songs that should have been left in the trash.
One cover on an album is no problem, but when one-quarter of the album is just good enough, and the rest kinda sucks, every extra cover track stands out in a bad way. Not to mention, there is barely any connectivity between one track to another. It all just makes the album feel incomplete. The first 4 tracks of the album are where the album feels its most complete and part of a full project. So if you make it that far, I'd say just turn it off after Contagion and you might have a better time with Transgression.
There was a fair amount of drama after this release as the guitarist/former bassist Christian Webbers and drummer Ray Herrera (who had been with the band since the beginning) were outed by Bell and returning guitarist Cazares. They were then replaced by half of Strapping Young Lad and went off to form their own band Archaea with the singer and bassist from Threat Signal. Archaea sounds A LOT like the decent tracks of Transgression, so there was likely a strong clash of artistic vision between them and singer Bell prior to release. Unfortunately for them, I think that Mechanize was a much better result of the feud than Archaea's debut album.
Standout tracks:
540,000 Degrees Fahrenheit
Transgression
Contagion
Digimortal
It's a tough call which album ends up at the bottom of the regular release list. For one thing, Digimortal is "finished." Yet, I feel like much of Digimortal should have remained on the cutting room floor. I come out feeling that, while Transgression was incomplete, it manages to succeed in more ways than Digimortal does and it doesn't feel quite as dated.
Aside from the few stand-out tracks, I'd generally just avoid the album. Maybe that's a bit mean, but it’s all completely forgettable and boring to me once the absurdity of the Cypress Hill crossover is done. Listening to Digimortal feels like listening to Metallica's Load and Reload. Each album is an example of both bands trying to appeal to a broader audience. Though there are still distinct elements to remind you of who you're listening to, when you're done, you've already forgotten a majority of the experience.
Standout tracks:
Invisible Wounds
Linchpin
Back the F*** Up
Hatefiles
Now we're in the weird limbo of the band that doesn't technically count but I have to mention it anyway. Hatefiles is the record released during the band's first hiatus after Cazares' departure. Basically, it's a bunch of demo tracks, some songs the band didn't feel were good enough to make it onto the other albums, and some remixes to tide over fans and make money while the band figured out what to do.
There are some songs here that I don't mind listening to, but it's just as worthless as I made it sound. You are not missing much by skipping this release. In fact, if you get the remastered versions of the other 90s releases, you'll get most of Hatefiles without having to buy it, as the tracks have been added as bonuses to other albums. If you find yourself in possession of this album or listening to it yourself, just feel your way through it and promptly turn it off when you're sick of the third version of the same song you have heard before.
Standout tracks:
Terminate
Edgecrusher [Urban Assault Mix]
Cyberdine
Remanufacture
I shouldn't even count this album since it’s all remix tracks of the best album. So, in that regard, it's not the version you should be listening to. Not to mention, it’s all techno, so you're not really getting a Fear Factory album with this one. When I was really into FF, I tried to like this remix list, but even that was asking too much. Even now, I found myself grinding my teeth in my attempt to make it through the album again. I occasionally like techno and its variations, but not this.
Standout tracks:
The f**k do you think? NONE
There you have it! That's my opinion on Fear Factory's extensive discography spanning the 20+ years they've been around. I didn't cover their small side projects or stuff prior to Concrete, but meh. I don't quite care enough to count them. Having gone back, I can see why I still like some favorites and why I have left Fear Factory behind. I don't have much of an interest in listening to them like any of my current favorites, but if a Demanufacture or Mechanize song comes on randomly, I will have my head ready to bang.