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Saulot's brutal noizz info corner presents:
FEAR FACTORY "Digimortal" review (may/2001)
with some further insights dated (december/2001).
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[disclaimer: if you are, by an accident, St Survivor please stop reading now,
'coz I assume that you already have this album and you have already know the
content of it ;)]
The thing that is currently molesting my cd player is a digipak edition of the
newest album by Fear Factory. It's quite hot (well, now not really... -Saulot's
reminder). The official release was 23th of April. In this case I had no choice
and I had to buy it. That's because I know this band very well and I know what
they can be capable of. I will also risk the opinion that they were the most
important rock band of 90's. Progressive sound mixed with kilotons of samples
and climatic keyboards. At the start of their career in 1992 they were labelled
as a death metal band, but their music was far beyond this style. The second
mini EP "Fear is the mindkiller" (1993), which contained the industrial remixes
of songs from the first album, only confirmed that and showed that they are not
afraid experimenting with sound. From that time the band is collaborating with
members of industrial band called Frontline Assembly - Rhys Fulber and Greg
Reely. The mix of Fear Factory hi -speed - heavy guitar sounds powered by
electronic, industrial elements added a new dimension to the music. The next
release "Demanufacture"(1995) was a killer to anyone, a ground-breaking album
which was a major landmark, showing new horizons in rock music. There wasn't
any other band on this world playing in that fashion. As usuall they turned out
to be far ahead of their times. Next one was "Remanufacture" (1997) which
contained techno remixes of their former album and it showed Fear Factory's new
face. Then 1998 gave us "Obsolete" which was "a normal one", a strict concept
album continuing the theme started on "Demanufacture" - the fight for survival
between mortal and machine, the struggle of single man for non-conformity.
"Digimortal" is continuation of this theme, connecting these albums in one
story. The digipak edition contains four extra tracks, here is complete listing
01. What will become?
02. Damaged
03. Digimortal
04. No one
05. Linchpin
06. Invisible wounds(dark bodies)
07. Acres of skin
08. Back the f*** up
09. Byte block
10. Hurt conveyor
11. [Memory imprints] Never end
12. Dead man walking(bonus track)
13. Strain vs. resistance(bonus track)
14. Repentance(bonus track)
15. Full metal contact(bonus track)
In overall 55'14" of music. What I would like to say is that I would probably
be a bit disappointed after buying the normal version of this album, because
It's too short for me, even with these bonus tracks. Very addictive stuff :) .
The band consists of four people:
Dino Cazares -energized riff traumatizer (read it as: guitar)
Burton C. Bell -resonating biodroid (read it as: vocals)
Raymond Herrera -atomated rhytmic attacker (read it as: drums)
Christian Olde Wolbers -subsonic assasin and auxilary resonator,
(read it as: bass)
The album was as usuall, engineered and produced with help of Rhys Fulber and
Mike Platnikoff (this guy isn't as usual as the first one). Such a shame that
the overall design and artwork wasn't made by Dave McKean@HOURGLASS which one
was responsible for visual look of "Demanufacture" and "Obsolete" albums. I
really liked this artist, but new design isn't as bad ;). (note from Spiny -
Dave McKean did nearly all the covers for the Neil Gaiman comic 'Sandman' and
also drew and inked his own comic 'Cages'. He is an amazing artist :) back to
the review ...) The most striking thing in it is very "technological" feeling
common with all he FF albums, even more inhuman. Nice. The people who has made
new design are yet unknown to me - Tom Jermann, Toby Yoo from T42DESIGN and a
man mysteriously called KAZ. But let's move to the main part of "Digimortal"
-the music. The quick look at the booklet gives an info about guest appearance
of B-REAL from Cypress Hill on Linchpin and Back the f*** up. OK, then. The
first five tracks of album are simply fucking great, heavy guitar riffs, groovy
bass line, melodic keyboards, vibrating, mechanical samples, agressive vocal
of Burton C. Bell and thunder-like drums (if you will hear somewhere something
like this: ttttrrrrrrrrrrr tttrtrrrr tttrrrrrrrrrrr tr tr trrrrrrrrr trrrr - it
means that it's certainly Fear Factory ;)). After hundreds and hundreds of
rehearsals of this record I can assemble the list titled "tHe MoSt Recommended
tRaCk LiStInG:" which certainly contain: What will become?, Digimortal, Damaged
No one, Linchpin, Invisible wounds [dark bodies], Dead man walking and Strain
vs resistance. The rest isn't as good as the titles mentioned above :/.
But don't be fooled that this band can only do the industrial-metal slaughter.
There is some more climatic tracks like Digimortal, Invisible wounds [dark
bodies] and [memory imprints]Never end (I have heard it before and I can cut my
hand off if this one isn't from somekind of video game). They are some kind of
short break, preparing psychically the listener to the next flood of high-
energetic fluid power transmission. The last bonus on album is called "Full
metal contact" and it comes from video game Radical Racer. You can listen to it
once and simple forget about it.
And the last reflection from me...... When I first saw the band photo in this
album, I had a very strange feeling that they are looking very jaded. Strange,
don't you think? ........... Nope, it isn't as strange as it could be.If I was
in the place of these nice gentlemen, I certainly could become bored to death.
Why? Because since the last album there is very hard to notice any sign of
progression, both in a plane of music and lyrics. I'm afraid that age of
seeking new horizons has ended for Fear Factory. Maybe there are five or six
good tracks on this album, but nothing more. The rest seems to be treated like
a "filler" to publish an LP. Personally I miss the times, when I could listen
to single FF production all day long, constantly holding my breath.
Unfortunately this age is long gone. The tracks on the new album are well
played, but are very similar in construction: 1st verse, refrain, 2nd verse,
refrain, electronic part (or not), repeat 1st, 2nd verse, refrain, end. That
annoys very much after several listenings of the whole album. And I will not
mention the skipped tracks that are so awful that I cannot bear it! Back the
f**k up! is a good example. Painfully simplistic music, like someone was trying
to kill himself on reinforced concrete without any visible results (shit, it
turned out that I'm recommending this track ;)).... I 'ate it! My conclusion is
a sad one: band certainly is on the bottom of the downward spiral (sorry NIN!).
The formula that worked well throught last years faded out and leaves listener
uninspired with empty pockets. Sometimes I have got strange feeling that all of
this music is strictly addressed to those frustrated teenagers, soaping their
eyes with nonconformity, which become the bestselling article of all times
(especially for the angry teens). All I want to ask now is, if FF will continue
to go this way. If yes, I would suggest changing their name from Fear Factory
to Ca$h Factory which could be more adequate to the profile of the further,
possible activity.
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