7/10
This is my second album review on this blog. This time, I'm going to be reviewing Fear Factory's latest album, "The Industrialist". It's not quite as new as "Dark Roots of Earth" was ("The Industrialist" was released June 5, 2012), but I thought now would be as good a time as ever to give it a listen. This is actually going to be only the second Fear Factory album I've ever listened to, the first being "Mechanize", which I really enjoyed. So here goes.01 The Industrialist: The song starts with clanking machine noises, but what did we really expect from a Fear Factory album by this point? A voice talks over the clanking about "The Destroyer of Worlds". I don't think this album will have many songs about ponies and rainbows. One thing I notice right away is the very melodic synth(?) sounds at the beginning, before the song launches into extremely fast pedalling complete with metal-on-metal sounds. So far, this album sounds a bit "growlier" in comparison to "Mechanize". The chorus has a very cool riff played in the background, which is a stand-out feature of this song. Essentially, this song is just a straight-up heavy metal song, as it doesn't have any of Burton C. Bell's melodic singing that a lot of recent Fear Factory songs have featured. Although having said that, the last 30 seconds or so have very melodic background singing.
02 Recharger: A great riff on this song, sounds very knife-like (that's the best way I can think to describe it). Oh, there's the melodic singing! How I missed you. Burton has a great melodic voice (as well as his metal voice) and it's really nice that he's using it quite a bit. "Soaring" would probably be the best way I can describe the vocals of the chorus. "All of this must end" is an oft repeated phrase, so this song is obviously keeping with the concept of something (most likely robots) destroying the world. Oh this is a really good chorus. It sounds even better the second time it comes around, and you can really notice the keyboards/synth behind the vocals.
03 New Messiah: Do all Fear Factory albums contain a song that is a play-on of Jesus Christ? There's "Pisschrist" on Demanufacture, and "Christploitation" on Mechanize, and now there's this song. Not there's a problem with that; I'm just wondering if it's a common theme. Nope, apparently not. It's only those three albums I have that have those songs. That's a bit of a coincidence. There's some rather strange sounding synth effects in this song. I'm not quite sure how I feel about them just yet. Ooh the growl/yelled "Messiah!" during the chorus near the end of the song are very well done.
04 God Eater: Oh this must be the song about ponies! Oh... no, maybe not. It starts with cool synth sounds again, which are definitely becoming a staple of this album. Apparently the name "God Eater" comes from a toybox that Burton C. Bell saw whilst travelling (thanks for that Wikipedia!) A bit of chanting comes after the opening synth, and then we're into the song. Hooray, more melodic chorus singing! Oh that echo-y yelling at around the 3 minute mark is a bit creepy. If I had to hazard a guess based solely on the title, I would assume this song is about robots rising up against mankind and taking over everything, becoming even more powerful than a God ("I'm your new God now!"). Oh I was pretty close. The lyrics are "No Gods, no Kings, only man." Aww man. No robots.
05 Depraved Mind Murder: Now that's a cheery title. And there's a very scary sounding drilling noise in the beginning. Now, that drill noise sounds fine in the intro, but including it after a line of singing just sounds a bit weird. This is a bit of a heavier song compared to most of the first part of the album, it still features Burton's melodic singing, but there's a lot less of it, and it's a much faster song. So far, unfortunately, none of the first five songs have really jumped out at me (I remember the song "Mechanize" from the Mechanize really jumped out at me the first time I gave it a listen).
06 Virus Of Faith: Did I accidentally skip back to the beginning? This song starts off with the hammering of some metal, complete with some whispering, and then into a heavy song. Yep, that's pretty much exactly how "The Industrialist" started. Oh I was expecting this to be another really heavy song, but there's still some melodic singing here, so we'll see where this goes. After the first chorus there are some very odd sounds that sound a bit like police sirens. Which is followed by a blast beat in first the left ear, and then the right ear. And that was very cool.
07 Difference Engine: Now we have the second shortest song of the album. This song is just 3 minutes and 38 seconds long. And so far, it sounds nothing like Fear Factory. It's very interesting. The first 45 seconds are very jarring compared to the rest of what I've listened to so far. But that's jarring in a good way. If there's such a thing. Which there now is. Well this song certainly caught my attention with the different-ness. Oh that's funny, because the song is called "Difference Engine". Well played Fear Factory. I can hear some potential Devin Townsend influences on the choruses here.
08 Disassemble: This song starts with some thundery sounds while a riff gets increasingly louder while alternating between the left and right speakers. Also on this song are some very strange electronic sound effects. Again, I'm not quite sure how I feel about them. The "Falling down, breaking down" part that comes on at about 1:20 is very well done, and I would say is another highlight of the album. Yes, I do really like that "Falling down, breaking down" part. This entire song is a highlight of "The Industrialist".
09 Religion Is Flawed Because...: From the length of this song I would expect it to be an instrumental. Let's see if I'm right. The end of "Disassemble" leads right into this song, which is 1 minute and 52 seconds long. Halfway through and so far all we've had is someone whispering something that sounds like "To me". With 30 seconds left, it looks like I was right in assuming this was an instrumental. Go me.
10 Human Augmentation: And now we have reached the last song of the album. Clocking in at 9 minutes and 5 seconds, this is the longest song of the album. And this now draws comparisons to the previous album, "Mechanize". Both albums had 10 songs, and "Mechanize" ended with an 8 minutes and 17 seconds long song called "Final Exit". Which was my favorite song of that whole album. 2 minutes in and all we've had so far is creepy whispering and machine sounds. That's a bit different from "Final Exit". I'm starting to wonder if this is actually going to be a song, or if it will just keep up the whispering and pneumatics for another 6 minutes. Only time will tell. At about 3:30 we have what sounds like a bunch of metal pipes falling off a shelf. I'm almost halfway through now and this still isn't a song. So far, this is a bit of a letdown as I let myself think it might be something like "Final Exit". I'm pretty sure the whispering person is just someone saying "This poison" over and over again. Oh, no, he changed to "Revelations" for a bit. And then back. Well, with 2 and a half minutes left, I'm almost positive it's not going to be an "actual" song. I can't really see this becoming a staple of a Fear Factory live show anytime soon. I'm kind of hoping there will a terrifying tell from Burton at the 10 seconds left mark, just to make it a bit more exciting. Well, that song was a bit of a letdown from the rest of the album. But I probably was more let down because I thought it would compare to "Final Exit". Ahh well. Album done now.
Well, this was a pretty good effort from Fear Factory. Not quite as good as "Mechanize" was in my opinion, but that may be because I listened to that album more than this, or because "Mechanize" was accompanied with the whole reunion hype. I deem "The Industrialist" worthy of SEVEN metal stars out of TEN.
Favorite song: Recharger
And don't forget to get your tickets to see Fear Factory this month in the U.S.!: http://fearfactory.com/tour-dates/
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