FEAR FACTORY have managed to remain one of the most original and endearing bands for better than twenty years and it hasn’t been through luck. The bands’ temerity to survive in the face of many up and downs within the band and with in the music industry as a whole has been remarkable. The main appeal of the band, besides the music, has been the ability to tell stories full of drama and context. In a world softened by the convenience of incredible technology, somehow never respecting the inherent danger that comes with it, the band has been a commentator on humankind’s potential folly. Continuing the man versus machine theme they have explored on every release, The Industrialist is the most fully developed story the band has ever produced and it is a great platform for the compelling music that comes with it.
Starting off with the title track, there is a noticeable difference sonically between 2010′s Mechanize album and this new release. Mechanize was thrashy and had solid songs, but was missing something for me in the mortar that held it together. This album sounds like the classic FEAR FACTORY sound albums from the 1990s. That is pretty weird to even type that since I am a huge fan of Raymond Herrera, who is still not part of the the current incarnation of the band. I have felt like his absence was hard to overcome in general. Perhaps in an attempt at getting back to the pure essence of the music, DINO CAZARES and his collaborator John Sankey (DEVOLVED) programmed all of the drums, bringing in some of the original essence of the style. GENE HOGLAN fans, please don’t send me hate mail, I love “The Atomic” clock as much as anyone. I just felt he wasn’t the right fit for the band. It’s more about power over precision, but it does make a difference in their sound. On the album the beats are punishing and fit perfectly with Dino’s patented superhuman, staccato down-picked riffs. The first song also sets the table for the story, masterfully laid out with BURTON C. BELL’s brutal vocal performance and harbinger of doom lyrics. The overall story is not so new, but as far as recurring themes go you can’t go wrong with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) becoming sentient and then trying to eradicate its masters. “Recharger” is another slice of primo, old school FF. Cutting riffs, sinister beats and crafty keyboard work set the stage while Bell shreds his vocal lines. The chorus is great, and Bell reminds us how he was one of the originators of modern metal singing, switching up his brutality and adding melody with ease. The bands’ secret weapon is also back on board in Rhys Fulber (FRONT LINE ASEMBLY), who is as integral in the producer’s chair as one can be. “New Messiah” is just a beast of a song. It could have come out at any time in the bands’ career and has some insanely good riffs in it. It’s almost a breath of fresh air in this day and age to hear this track with its great synth work, key changes and dynamic chorus parts. When Bell screams “Future. Begins. Now.” you really feel the passion and pain of his delivery. This will be a great song to hear live. “God Eater” moves the story along dramatically with an eerie keyboard/guitar riff that may be partly inspired by one of the greatest horror themes ever. Even if it wasn’t a conscious nod, it definitely fills your ears with dread. “Depraved Mind Murder” sounds like the late 1990′s version of the band, unrelenting and harsh. “Virus of Faith” delivers more of the same vitriol and punch as earlier tracks. This cut also has some of Dino’s best stop on a dime rhythms, another key to his unique style. Other top tracks include “Difference Engine”, and “Disassemble”. This is definitely the best album under their moniker since Archetype (even if they won’t acknowledge that) and certainly right in line with the bands finer work from their heyday. I suddenly have the urge to watch a The Matrix Trilogy marathon and you will too!
Burton C. Bell and Dino Cazares: Together stronger than all.
So day two of Sonisphere Spain rolls around, and I ended up parking close to my spot from the day before, I didn’t want to hassle driving around in circles to only end up there anyway. The intention was to get in and see MASTODON’s set, which would mean that we would miss Spain’s VITA IMANA, and Sweden’s SISTER. Now I mention that the intention was to see all of MASTODON, but it was everyone else’s as well. By the time we made it through all of security, they were almost done with their set. I caught their last three tracks “Curl Of The Burl”, “Blood And Thunder”, and “Creature Lives”. What I saw was good, for everything that is said about their vocals, they were pretty good on this occasion. The instrumentation was top notch as always.
CHILDREN OF BODOM was on the second stage, not really a fan, did check them out for a bit, and the crowd was eating them up. More power to them, and glad they had so many people checking them out. Alexi is a great guitarist, just not my thing.
WITHIN TEMPTATION is a fairly popular band within the Spanish metal community, I for one am not a huge fan, as a matter of a fact, I’ve always seen the female fronted symphonic, gothic metal, or what have you as the cliché that followed Nu Metal. Hot looking chick, some detuned guitars, semi-programmed drums, and symphonic keyboards to boot, and ta-da, you have a fad, epidemic, or whatever you want to call it. Now before you get all bent out of shape, they’re a good band, just not my cup of tea. If I want to listen to them, there are quite a few other female fronted bands that I’d choose before them. Watched a bit on the big screen behind the sound table, and then walked over and waited for GHOST to come on.
GHOST was the revelation of the festival for a lot of people. Well I should say this; people either loved, them, or hated them. Their show was everything people had talked about, the Nameless Ghouls in the back, this time dressed all in white, with Papa Emeritus out front. The set was short, yet powerful, with highlights that included “Con Clavi Con Dio” and the closer “Ritual”.
I actually hung out around the second stage till ENTER SHIKARI came on, SLAYER was playing on the first stage, but I had checked their setlist out online, and it was essentially the same as when I saw them two years ago at the same festival. So I figured I’d watch the beginning of ENTER SHIKARI then head over to SLAYER for their encore. The band kicked into “System” when Rou Reynolds jumped over the barricade and started singing the first track from the crowd. The security guards went nuts trying to keep tabs on him as the masses embraced him. Before they started “…Meltdown” Rou mentioned, “what are you guys doing here? You do realize that’s SLAYER on that stage, why are you wasting your time with us? Is it pity? We don’t need your sympathy?” And so the track began. Very energetic sets, one of the best on day two, if not the festival. Always enjoyed their mix of different genres of music, others do it poorly to come off as a joke, something this band is not.
Over to SLAYER, they are powerful, commanding, and as I mentioned above, have been playing essentially the same songs since Dave Lombardo came back to the band. Nothing wrong with that, highlights for me include “Dead Skin Mask”, “Raining Blood”, “Angel Of Death”, “South Of Heaven” and “War Ensemble”.
METALLICA was up next, the moment I walked into the festival on this day I could tell there was a lot more people than the day before. Sure the bill was chalked full of a lot of great bands, but the majority were there to see the biggest metal band in the world. Love them or hate them, they were there to give back to their fans, and celebrate the most sold metal album of all time, their self-titled album, also referred to as The Black Album. For all of the bands flaws, they are also the first to auto-critique themselves, for all the things they do wrong, they usually rectify in some fashion. What I’m getting at is for everything people bitch about Lars Ulrich, he’s the one that puts the set lists together. He’s the one that sits there and painstakingly sees what tracks they’ve played the last few times through a city or country, and makes sure they give them something different. For example they started off with “Hit The Lights”, went into “Master Of Puppets” and then gave us “The Shortest Straw”. Everyone went nuts. They followed this with “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and the somewhat new track “Hell And Back” off of Beyond Magnetic. All of this before launching into The Black Album in reverse order. Highlights for me off of the album included “Of Wolf And Man”, “Through The Never”, and “Don’t Tread On Me”. Their encore consisted of “Battery”, “One” and “Seek & Destroy”. They blew every other band away, that includes everyone that came on before and after they played. They had a show, giant video screens, ramps, a “snake pit”, pyro, lights, etc. All of this to accompany all of the classic tracks they laid down on the audience. Someone mentioned afterwards, it’s not fair; they have an unfair advantage, why don’t they allow everyone to use their entire stage setup, lights, etc. And I thought, hmmm, I wonder if OZZY OSBOURNE let them use his stage on the Bark At The Moon Tour? What about VAN HALEN, SCORPIONS, or DOKKEN for that matter on the Monsters Of Rock tour throughout the US? I bet they were relegated to using a fraction of the headlining bands, and blew them away night after night! There is a reason why they are this big of a band, it didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t come without a ton of hard work. For all of you keeping score, they didn’t start to headline until …And Justice For All, they were the second band to play each day on that aforementioned Monsters Of Rock tour. Getting back to Sonisphere, I was happy that I was witnessing a special event with them performing everything off of The Black Album, especially since it’s uncertain if they’ll ever do this again. The band was also gracious, and thanked the crowd several times not only for coming, but for allowing them to be as lucky as they are as a band, and have the longevity and celebrity they’ve achieved. Most people’s gripes about the show had to do with a few flaws Lars Ulrich had in his playing. Me personally, if you want perfection, stay home and listen to the album! I’d prefer to hear him screw up than finding out there was a drum machine behind him at the live show. Also, when you’re the biggest metal band of all time, you’re also going to have more detractors than most. To them I’d say we get it, you don’t like the band, let the rest of us enjoy them, if so we choose.
GOJIRA was after it seemed as if everyone went over to see them. I’ve always felt that the band sounds better live than they do on album. The production of their albums has always left me feeling a little cold. Too much bottom end, too much distortion, that is until I heard their new single “L’Enfant Sauvage”. The studio version sounds punishing as ever, but clean and intricate where it needs to be as well. The track was the next to last song and sounded spot on as well, and definitely one of the highlights of the entire day. A lot of people mentioned that they were their favorite band of the festival. Other highlights of their set included “The Heaviest Matter Of The Universe”.
In Europe you get all types of weird mixes at festivals. Although the next group may not fit in with some of the other bands, they put on a hell of a show, and did a decent job hanging in with some of the other acts, outperforming a lot of other bands along the way. The band is EVANESCENCE, although I appreciate some of their music, I’m not a die-hard of the band. That said, the band kicked things off with “What You Want” and “Going Under” possibly two of my favorite tracks by the band, and the highlight of their set for me.
After that I stepped away to watch CLUTCH. The band is one of the biggest underground bands of all time. They have slowly transformed from a metal band, to basically a blues based rock n roll band, in the process they’ve taken thousands of fans worldwide with them on a great musical journey. Nothing wrong with that, actually it’s very commendable that they have been able to instill what they believe in into many a rabid fan. My personal favorite of their set was “Profits Of Doom” and “The Mob Goes Wild”.
Last up was FEAR FACTORY, Burton C. Bell quipped a few songs in, “we’re the last one on, we must be the headliner!” I have been a fan of the band like most, since Demanufacture. I have always gone out of my way to purchase special editions of their albums, and have seen very good things from them live, and very bad things as well. I’m happy to say this was the best performance I’ve seen by the band. Were Burton’s melodic parts off? When aren’t they? Again, I prefer that he sound off, rather than knowing they’re piping in 16 prerecorded tracks he’s just lip synchs to. They played tracks off of every album Dino Cazares played on, three from Obsolete another three from Demanufacture, two off of Digimortal, two from Mechanize and “Martyr” off of Souls For The New Machine. Highlights for me include “Smasher/Devourer”, “Linchpin”, and of course the closer “Replica”. I was shocked that they didn’t play “Recharger” which is the first single off of The Industrialist. They were in my opinion the second best act on the entire festival.
The second day of the festival was head and shoulder above day one, so many bands delivered. METALLICA, FEAR FACTORY, GHOST, ENTER SHIKARI, MASTODON AND SLAYER all did their part to entertain, and destroy the crowd. Major increase in grade! Third part regarding the entire experience is next.
While I was seeing TRAP THEM live this weekend, all of you Los Angeles based bangers got some cool treats as well. First off, THE DAMNED THINGS featuring members of EVERY TIME I DIE, ANTHRAX and FALL OUT BOY played live on Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show. Then we had DEVIN TOWNSEND performing an awesome NAMM showcase. Last but certainly not least, we had SEPULTURA launch their first American attack in quite some time and they were even joined on stage by Dino Cazares for “Roots Bloody Roots”.
Drummer Gene Hoglan is metal’s “go to” guy. Just ask bands like TESTAMENT and FEAR FACTORY, the latter his most recent gig. He’s also one of the greatest metal drummers of all time, the consummate professional, and one hell of a nice guy that is always a joy to interview. Almost 30 years in the “business” and a resume that also includes DARK ANGEL, DEATH, STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, MELDRUM, MECHANISM, and DETHKLOK has positioned him far better than most drummers to release not just an instructional drum DVD (though it is instructional), but an all-around informative, entertaining, and occasionally comical look (check out the extras) inside the world of Gene Hoglan, one that just happens to revolve around a drum kit. Hoglan explains what makes The Atomic Clock tick.
MAA: Originally I was hesitant about reviewing The Atomic Clock because I’m not a drummer, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out just how informative it is, for the musician, the fan, or anyone interested in Gene Hoglan or drumming in general. You really don’t have to be a drummer to enjoy the DVD.
Gene Hoglan: That absolutely was the intent and that’s an extremely cool endorsement. I just tried to make it for anybody. Obviously, if you’re a metal drummer and especially if you’re a Gene fan or something then it’s right up your alley. But I just tried to make it entertaining for all. You don’t have to be a drummer and you don’t have to be a musician. I’ve said this a million times; here’s a couple of hours well spent.
MAA: It doesn’t make your brain hurt, it doesn’t drag, and it doesn’t make you go “My god, why am I watching this?”
Gene Hoglan: Yeah, a lot of those instructional DVDs can do that, but this was never intended to be an instructional DVD anyway. It was just going to be a two-hour DVD on me. That’s why all of those extras became extras; I was just going to interstitially drop those little extra things in there. Then my director, as he was editing it, was like “Man, I think it just has a better flow if you make this an instructional DVD.” And I said that wasn’t my intent, but ok I’ll defer to his wisdom on this. If I do another one maybe it’ll be a bunch of fun stuff and then maybe a little pseudo-educational stuff I suppose.
MAA: So in the beginning this was just going to be about Gene Hoglan?
Gene Hoglan: Well, kind of, yeah. I didn’t know if I could do an instructional DVD and then I started thinking about the fact that I know I have a lot of approaches that are rather unorthodox. Every time I bring up stuff like leg weights to other drummers they’re like “What?! I never even thought of that!” Or some of the stretching or some of the other ideas I have or whatever. Then I figured I could have a big instructional portion for the DVD and it turned out to be 90 minutes of instructional stuff. We had plenty to go with so that’s why my director wanted to make a 90 minute instructional thing and then a half hour worth of extras. What other instructional DVDs have extras? So that made it stand alone.
MAA: You must have been working on this a few years ago then.
Gene Hoglan: Yeah, I started it in 2007; that’s when I filmed it. I was just never in a hurry to get it out. The whole reason I started working on it was after STRAPPING [YOUNG LAD] went on hiatus or broke up or whatever the hell we did I was thinking that we’re not telling everybody we’re breaking up. I mean Devin was just saying “We’re on hiatus man; you never know, I could come back to this.” So that left the band kind of in limbo and I wasn’t going to be getting a lot of phone calls saying “Hey, your band broke up; why don’t you come and join us and do stuff with us over here.” That’s the way it is when you’re in a band; people think you’re kind of untouchable. And so I thought that here is something I could do that would just be me. And of course it would be something to generate some income and then start applying myself to that part of my career, like clinician and teacher and anything like that. I could do the clinic tour on the back of this DVD. So it was just here is something to do to keep me busy and get my name out there and that sort of thing. (more…)
1966 Dino Cazares, guitarist of FEAR FACTORY is born.
1976 Phil Lipscomb, bassist of TAPROOT is born.
1989 Ozzy Osbourne was charged with threatening to kill his wife Sharon. Ozzy was released on the condition that he immediately went into detox, the case was later dropped when the couple decide to reconcile.
A video interview with guitarist Dino Cazares of Los Angeles cyber metallers FEAR FACTORY conducted on August 10, 2010 in Cracow, Poland can be viewed in two parts below.
The Nuclear Blast Online Shop is taking orders for the lush festival-box edition box of FEAR FACTORY’s latest album, “Mechanize” (measures 23.5 x 15 x 5 cm) featuring the limited edition of Mechanize, including three bonus tracks, a cassette tape with all songs from the 1991 demo, a bandana, four buttons and a belt with the FEAR FACTORY buckle.
Mechanize was released in the U.S. on February 9, 2010 via Candlelight Records. The CD, which was co-produced by the band with Rhys Fulber (FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY, PARADISE LOST), was mixed by Greg Reely (PARADISE LOST, FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY, SKINNY PUPPY).
FEAR FACTORY and THE SWORD will open for METALLICA on a number of dates in Japan, Australia and New Zealand in September.
THY WILL BE DONE was the first band on the main stage following the local bands. Coming out of the growing Providence, RI scene they are making a name for themselves as tireless road dogs. This is my second time seeing them and I really am digging their blend of 90’s metal styles (think old Sepultura & Machine Head, not nu metal) embellished with modern sensibilities and passion. They just rip it up live going from thrash to touches of death metal and back to a power groove-type stomp interchangeably. TWBD also has great vocals and thought provoking lyrics. They closed their strong set with new song “Earth’s Final Embrace”. Special props to vocalist Jim for his awesome Willie Nelson shirt!
SILENT CIVILLIAN was up next and the enormous response they got from the crowd impressed me greatly. Led by singer/guitarist Johnny Santos (also of Spineshank) SC plays an unapologetic blend of modern 80’s style thrash and metalcore akin to Trivium and Bullet for My Valentine. The combination works in spades for them where others trying this would just fall flat. On both their debut Rebirth of the Temple and their new release Ghost Stories they throw down tons of chunky thrash riffs and add great choruses with breakdowns galore. Santos and co-guitarist Dave Delacruz swap leads back and forth fluidly as well as the occasional harmony lead too. Santos is truly a great singer and he hasn’t lost any edge handling the guitar on top of the vocals. They may not be everybody’s cup of tea but most of the all the songs and the talent is there full steam. (more…)
