The new album starts out very strong with the song “Slave Labor” which is perhaps the first ‘single’ from the record. A video was apparently made for “Cyberwaste” but “Slave Labor” is the song played on the Music Choice Metal channel. Do not ask me about that. Regardless, this album could have easily followed the band’s second full length release “Demanufacture” in that it is quite similar to that style of sound. FF incorporates plenty of start-stop riffs like they used to do. The drumming is back to sounding maniacal and mechanical. The riffs may be simpler than before, but they still definitely sound like Fear Factory. The use of keyboards and electronic effects by long time conspirator Rhys Fulber (formerly of Frontline Assembly) and John Bechdel (also of Ascension of the Watchers) is necessarily present, too. Vocals are what you would expect from Bell, other than the absence of a Barney Greenway-inspired style apparent on the debut. No matter, this is a return to form for the recharged, reinvigorated, and perhaps reborn Fear Factory.

The bulk of the songs do not conform to a sort of ‘concept album’ or theme, but they are still firmly rooted in the notion of man vs. machine. I mean, really, what kind of Fear Factory album would it be without such references? Like an album without mixed clean and growled vocals as only Burton C. Bell can do, it would not be one, period. “Drones” invokes the band’s song that was included on one of those Mortal Kombat albums. The opening moaned vocals on the titular track are not ineffective, it is just that I do not know what their purpose is. Otherwise, this song features barked vocals and alternately sung parts. All of this fits well within the band’s more familiar style, especially if we suspend belief in the horrid Digimortal release.

The low-part of the album comes in the final 4 songs. The worst of all of this is the inclusion of a St. Anger-sounding snare drum on “Bonescraper.” While not as awful as that from Lar$ Ul(tra)rich, it is still distracting and inappropriate. Thankfully they have a large enough guitar sound that most of it is concealed on this otherwise good song. In other news, “Human Shields” invokes U2, for cryin’ out loud. It really does not sound like a Fear Factory song at all but is a good listen nonetheless. It just does not fit in with the rest of the album. The 12th song is an ambient/dub kind of thing that is basically 7 minutes of nothing. It should not have been included. The final track, lucky #13, is a cover of Nirvana’s “School.” It sounds very punk and still like Fear Factory at the same time. Why its inclusion? I do not know. It, too, does not fit in with this album that would have worked better had it stopped after track number ten.

Production was handled by the band [primarily by Christian, if I recall the ‘studio updates’ properly] and it is nothing unfamiliar to FF fans. The band has gone back to using the logo from the first three releases, in case anyone cares. I do not know if this represents a stylistic shift, but there it is, nonetheless. They also left Roadrunner and are now on Liquid8. This allowed them a fresh start, I will guess. A rather comedic result of FF leaving RR is the lack of an album review at Blabbermouth, which is owned by RR, although an advertisement for the album has appeared there in addition to plenty of ‘news’ about the band. Back to the record, this is an artificially long album at 59:08 due to the things I mentioned before. Overall, though, it is still a 7 out of 10. If you like Demanufacture, you will like this.

written by Tony Belcher

Playing time: 59.08