Fear Factory
MECHANIZE
Candlelight Records

It’s truly amazing the journey that has taken place with the members of people calling themselves “Fear Factory” over the years.  Burton C. Bell has been the lead vocalist, then quit because he couldn’t work with Dino Cazares, then returned when Dino was fired, then quit because he didn’t want to do heavy music anymore…and now finally he’s returned to working with Dino, but not the other members who he once chose over Dino.  It’s an odd journey.  But regardless of what has happened, the new group calling themselves Fear Factory and featuring 3 members that have previously been members of “Fear Factory” has returned (or debuted depending on how you see this project) with what is, arguably, the second best release in the history of their catalog.  MECHANIZE is like a really, really heavy version of DEMANUFACTURE or SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE.

Regardless of whether you deem the current membership of Fear Factory to be the “real” band or not, there is no denying that MECHANIZE captures the full spirit of the most classic era of the band.  Listening to songs like “Industrial Discipline”, you can tell that both vocalist Burton C. Bell and guitarist Dino Cazares came into this project fully aiming to recapture the past greatness of this band.  In a way, you have to imagine that they knew that MECHANIZE had to be a nearly perfect album in order to get people to not focus on who is in the band.  It works.  Songs like “Christploitation” and “Designing The Enemy” would have fit on any of the albums that featured the original lineup.  Being fair, bassist Byron Stroud has a good amount of history with FF2.0; enough to understand what needed to be brought to the table to bring the defined underbelly the band has always captured.  As for drummer Gene Hoglan, he’s the greatest drummer in the world of heavy metal – bar none.  Fear Factory has long had their sound established by the bottom end of the band, and in many regards, the new bottom end featured on MECHANIZE is a bit stronger than anything they’ve shown in their past.  

Maybe not so surprisingly, the only true difference in sound between MECHANIZE and previous Fear Factory releases comes from guitarist Dino Cazares.  While his playing fits the fast and furious pace of the material, his guitar tone has changed over the years.  What he brings back to the FF table here is closer to the frenetic, down-tuned sound he features with his Divine Heresy project than what he previously showecased before his removal from Fear Factory.  It works.  “Songs like “Oxidizer” sound like they could have fit on any previous album, even with the guitar tone being a shade lower than previous efforts.  

PITRIFF RATING – 9/10 – Regardless of if you really consider this band Fear Factory or not, there’s absolutely no way to argue that MECHANIZE is a great album for fans of both extreme metal and the band that was previously known as Fear Factory.  This album shows that there’s a lot of greatness left to be show in the chemistry that Bell and Cazares have.  Brilliance by any name is still brilliant.

Chris Akin