Fear Factory are back bigger and louder as standard with ‘The Industrialist’.
The band now seems to be a two-piece, for example there isn’t an actual drummer playing on the album and they instead opted for programmed drums and used computers to bring the mechanical hectic beats alive. Of course some poor drummer will have to mimic the beats live on the current world tour on an actual drum kit and we are sure the double bass will keep both of their feet ultra busy and their arms raw with the constant blasting on the drum kit. The programmable drums completely fooled me into imagining some mad son of a bitch playing like a crazy machine.
Dino Cazares as always has the ability to write some fast but catchy riffs and sometimes you just can’t help but imagine the T-1000 and the T-800 beating the living metal out of each other but maybe that’s just me?
This is a concept album and with all great concept albums we get a story and we think as a package it works and the album does have a very digital feel that accompanies Burton C. Bell’s (FF vocalist) story well.
The story is similar to Terminator; an artificially sentient being which decides that the humans need to go bye bye, much like our beloved SkyNet.
Burton C. Bell said about the album, “the protagonist (The Industrialist) is the incarnation of all industries in the form of an automaton. The mechanical, technological, and scientific advances through the industrial age led to the creation of The Industrialist. In the story, the automaton becomes sentient as it collects memories with each passing day. Through observation and learning it gains the will to exist. What was meant to help man, will eventually be man’s demise.”
Fear Factory are big Terminator fans and they ain’t afraid to show it! Numerous homages have been made in their music and photoshoots and they are even currently selling T-Shirts with the T-800 on them on the tour for ‘The Industrialist’.
As a Terminator fan myself, it looked as though Fear Factory had made enough connections with Terminator that appearing on a soundtrack would be likely but T3 was too pc for that to ever happen but if you’re willing to put the time into the video game ‘The Terminator: Dawn of Fate’ and unlock everything one of the rewards is a music player featuring the tracks Fear Factory did for the game.
The new album does live up to the Fear Factory name, the concept album works and it tells the story of the automaton well.
The music changes regularly from ferociously mathematical, to hectic and melodic with the vocals changing from singing to screaming with ease, a range which Burton always manages to pull off well. Dino continues to thrash out the riffs that keep Fear Factory alive and well, fusing sounds together in a mind-melting tonal theme.
So, what is the hidden meaning of the concept album? well… I guess you could take it any way you want to- a big angry robot deciding we all die, or an underlying message about the collapse of society and the rise of a fiscal god… You decide!
My favorite track from the album? New Messiah.
We gave our viewers the chance to download and listen to the second track off the album ‘Recharger’ go here to download it now
Dino and Burton make a great team and we look forward to hearing more from them in the future.
Webmaster