MECHANIZE: A THOUGHTFUL REVIEW FROM A PERSON WHO ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDS FEAR FACTORY
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 9:46am by Sammy O'Hagar
Say what you will about Fear Factory – you’re probably correct. Their faux-industrial flourishes of synths are ignorable at best and ridiculous at worst, Dino Cazares’ stop-start riffs blend together after a song or two, their sci-fi themes cover the spectrum of cheesy to horribly cringe-worthy, Burton C. Bell’s singing sounds like Justin Broadrick’s slow brother moaning in a karaoke contest, that their whole approach could be interpreted as watered down extreme metal for the Hot Topic goth set… they’re all pretty apt if they’re not a band you grew up with (I’m looking at you, Axl Q. Rosenberg). But say you’re sixteen years old, the oldest sibling and cousin on both sides of your parents’ families, don’t have any cool uncles with Overkill patches on their denim jackets or exhaustive NWOBHM collections, don’t have any friends that are into Cannibal Corpse or Slayer or Napalm Death (or a whole lot of friends at all, really), and your parents bond over their love for James Taylor. You can’t just go from zero to Carcass. Thus, bands like Fear Factory exist: to ease the transition between Nine Inch Nails and the wealth of perverted delight death, black, and doom metal have to offer. For that reason and really that reason alone, I can never hate on Fear Factory. They don’t stand up to a lot of scrutiny, but they do what they do well, and serve as an excellent gateway into extreme metal for the unsure and uninitiated. From Fear Factory I moved to Slipknot’s first album, and from there I moved to Reign in Blood. From there, it was all downhill very, very fast.
So I was delighted to hear that Dino had waddled his way back into the FF fold; admittedly, the only thing that kept me from completely hating (as opposed to just mostly hating) Divine Heresy was Cazares’ riffing, even if it did have a tendency to grow stale in that confines of that shitty, shitty band. I stopped following Fear Factory with Digimortal (B-Real guest verse = I’m all set with your band. That even goes for Outkast, as far as I’m concerned.) and have since only thrown Demanufacture or Obsolete on every now and again for some healthy nostalgia. I’ve obviously moved on to heavier and/or more esoteric metal, and thus didn’t need the band anymore to satisfy my heaviness quotient. And oddly enough, Mechanize, the band’s reboot after two Dino-less records, is an album exactly for that audience: while still undoubtedly a Fear Factory album, for better or worse, it’s full of embellishments those familiar with and fond of metal outside the realm of Fear Factory will recognize. In doing so, the band may have made the most satisfying album of their career, and quite possibly their heaviest. Though half the original lineup is gone, the spirit remains the same, if not drastically improved.
From the opening moments on forward, it’s apparent that Mechanize is undoubtedly a Fear Factory album. The title (and first) track begins with a percussive industrial intro, along with the main riff filtered almost out of existence. But when the band kicks in, there’s a renewed sense of purpose and improved plan of attack: Cazares plays an 8-string instead of a 7 to add an extra layer of density to his rigid guitar work, Bell barks like a post-apocalyptic general in a James Cameron movie (well, before he started making the ones about doomed steamliner love stories and blue cat people), and Gene fucking Hoglan is being Gene fucking Hoglan on the drums. The band are still working within the boundaries of what they’ve always been, but despite their faithfulness to their original mission, they’ve somehow improved upon it. The rest of Mechanize continues in this fashion: the militant riffing of “Christploitation,” the effective good cop/bad cop routine of “Powershifter,” the powerful and surprisingly tuneful closer “Final Exit” (which gives Demanufacture’s “A Therapy for Pain” a run for its money for Best FF album finale) and the awesome, awesome riff that rears its head ¾ of the way through “Desigining the Enemy” all point to a band that have matured enough to enrich their sound, but not matured enough to not make occasionally cheesy sci-fi metal. But even the cheesiest moments of Bell’s singing and Rhys Fulber’s synth fiddling and processed sampling are either lost to the power of nostalgia or merely overshadowed by the ample heaviness the rest of the album provides. Mechanize is remarkably tight, and its transgressions can be easily forgiven.
The album’s MVP, though, is Gene fucking Hoglan. Though his role as sticksman-for-hire is well known by now (his drumming for Dethklok elevated the band from nifty Metalocalypse footnote to pretty decent melodic death metal band), his playing in Fear Factory is goddamn magnificent, playing surgically precise when necessary, but adding virtuoso flourish in every now and again to keep things interesting (even including blastbeats on occasion, which sound awesome in the context of a FF album). Maybe Hoglan’s playing has made Fear Factory a better band, or maybe Dino’s work in Divine Heresy has made him the sort of guitarist now worthy of a drummer as proficient as him. Either way, with much due respect to original drummer Raymond Herrera, those pining for the band’s original lineup after Mechanize are doing so for the sake of completism. An original lineup reunion would have been a blatant cash grab; the album half of Fear Factory have put out in its place works great on its own merits as well as hinting at a fruitful future for this incarnation (if they can stay together long enough to do so). Mechanize will certainly please the band’s fans as well as put a smile on the faces of those who have moved on since the band’s late-90s heyday. Fear Factory are dead; long live Fear Factory.
Socially Awkward 16-year old with dubious musical taste’s score:
(5 out of 5 horns)
Jaded Elitist Douchebag Adult Who is in No Way Socially Awkward score:
(3 out of 5 horns)
Average:
(4 out of 5 horns)
-SO
i really like how you said Fear Factory is a good transition band hahah i remember being a youngster playing Carmageddon, listening to fear factory open the game up. it got me fucking PUMPED to run over some cows and innnocent civs.
today, im a die hard metal fan
hehehehehe well put, sir
Oooh my god, I had totally forgotten about Carmageddon! :-O
Too bad it so old. It probably won’t run on Vista. That game kicked ass.
I didn’t know that Fear Factory was in the soundtrack though.
Recently invested an entire afternoon trying toget C2 to run on Vista – no way! A shame.
Sounds exactly like my experience at 17! FF & Carmageddon!
The first paragraph did a great job of describing what Fear Factory are; a gateway metal band.
+1 Brings me back to my late 90’s highschool days. To say that I’ve moved on to the heavier sound is an understatement. Fear Factory = shwag weed…I think I might have moved on speed balling coke and heroin. Good review.
Nah, I tried getting into Fear Factory multiple times and they’re just not good. There are way better gateway metal bands out there.
korn – follow the leader :D
FF were my gateway to extreme metal too. And I liked Mechanize, which was odd for me, given how I reacted to their more recent material.
Fear Factory did get me into listening to metal. But this being said, I can’t approve that they are a gateway metal band. Few metal bands incorporate as much electronic and still keeps it heavy and, you can’t deny – no bands sounds like Fear Factory. I was searching for another Fear Factory type of band for years and never found it. Sure not all of their albums were good, but the last two still contained some good tunes. You can’t say “Archetype” or “Transgression” are bad tracks.
As a longtime FF fan, I can only hope this fucking awesome album shut the fuckin’ mouths of the non-believers. Fear Factory rules. They just needed a kick in the butt to realise their full potential. Dino is now a great guitar player and it shows, but the true sound of FF remained intact and I love it.
As they say themselves “welcome to the evolution that is Fear Factory”. Cheesy as fuck. But this time, it’s true. Great album.
They’re a gateway metal band in the same way that say, Machine Head or Pantera or Sepultura were (at the time).
All 4 got a decent amount of airplay and exposure during the 90’s, all 4 were (at their peaks) very much products of that decade and its development. Add to that the fact that, to be fair, all 4 were/are still very heavy bands.
I think people are using the term “gateway band” to affirm how much cooler and heavier they personally are now, cos they’re too good for FF now, which is quite sad. If you look at the bands mentioned (and i’m sure there are others) they were all very heavy, but got airplay despite that. It was just the climate of things at the time. In truth whilst “metal” overall might have more exposure now, that’s because the mainstream has recognised less heavy aspects of the genre. At the time if you wanted to play some metal you HAD to play Slayer, or Metallica, or something heavy like the key 4 mentioned above. So the bands were heavy, but got enough exposure to recruit more people… therefore “gateway”.
I also think it’s funny people on here claiming they’ve moved onto “heavier” stuff now, like Hatebreed/Slayer/Behemoth/Amon Amarth… as, apart from Behemoth, i’d say Fear Factory in full flight ((Soul Of A New Machine/Demanufacture/select cuts from Obsolete/Archetype/Transgression) are a hell of a lot heavier nad more death metal than people seem to assume.
They did shoot themselves in the foot with Digimortal though. They will forever be associated with bouncy nu-metal as a result, rather than industrial death metal.
Ah well.
PS – mix half of archetype with half of transgression and you have a very good album. The leftovers… we can jsut foget about, right?
Meeh, this article looks a little “hey, I’m true” bullshit….
So, does it mean that someone can just stop listening FF after “getting true”. What about those who are OPEN MINDED enough to listen both “true metal” and “gateway bands”?
Hmm, I should have looked down. That makes several of my points in a much more succinct fashion. It does seem very cool to be too “tr00″ to like FF now.
Great, more vagina album art.
What’s wrong with vaginal artwork? Vaginas rock. If you’d have put your dick in one you would know.
Whatever you say, Clarky Cat.
That looks like the meanest vagina ever.
Be afriad, It will bite!
It’s so… angry!
+1.000.000!!
Waiting..
Still Waiting..
dusty snatch!
Sooooo the second score is the one that we (MS readers) should be paying attention to… Maybe minus the “No Way Socially Awkward” part.
Zing!
(But yes. We are losers.)
Mediocre. Overhyped.
Overhyped by who? Every jaded, elitist metalhead (like probably 75% of metalsucks) loves to hate FF, and were probably counting the days to the release of this album just so they could pan the shit out of it, that is of course, without REALLY having listened to it. :/
dude, i like what ur saying about gateways in the 1st paragraph. hate on nu-metal and metalcore all u want, thats what brought me 2 slayer and arch enemy and dimmu and stuff like that
I love Fear Factory not just because they’re a good transitional band but because almost all of modern metal is riding their coattails. Look at bands like Chimaira, Sybreed, Mnemic, and Scarve and you’ll see but a glimpse of their influence. Not to mention every metal band that does the good cop/bad cop deal owes a debt of gratitude to Fear Factory.
great reveiw. great album.
im not too cool for fear factory
You pretty much said it best there. I first heard Fear Factory at 12 (!) years old on MTV in 1998…they were playing at some wrestling event on MTV Spring Break, and if I remember correctly, they did “Shock” and “Edgecrusher”. I could be wrong on the show or the songs, this was many years and beers ago. I bought “Obsolete” afterwords, and have been a fan ever since. I might as well go and make myself completely uncool by admitting that even “Transgression” had a couple of ok songs, as long as you forget that it’s FF playing them. Long live FF!!
Sadly CJ, you’re correct on both.
The band that got you into metal is never a “good” one. In my case it was Slipknot (whom I still love (I know they suck. Guilty pleasure)) and from there I went on to Lamb Of God (totally still love them too) and then Slayer. Now I listen to all kinds of crazy shit, but not too extreme. I still find (some) Grindcore too inaccesible (I like Magrudergrind and Napalm Death though) and I just don’t seem to get the thing about Black Metal.
I agree with the sentiment that Fear Factory is a good gateway band. Oddly enough, I started on Digimortal and worked my way back, and it was the opposite for me from what Sammy O’ Hagar did: I heard Slipknot’s self titled album first and then got into Fear Factory and then Slayer. But then again, nu metal was all the rage when I was in middle school and starting high school.
After reading this review and hearing one or two songs off of the album, I might have to pick this up. It sounds like the album that should have been released after Demanufacture.
It’s one hell of a Divine Heresy cd, I’ll give it that.
I actually got into Fear Factory after already getting into death metal. They’re not the heaviest band out there, but what I like about Fear Factory is that they are different. Heaviness isn’t the only factor to me when I rate good metal. When I want to listen to something heavy as fuck I put on Behemoth or Meshuggah. When I want some unique death-tinged industrial I put on Fear Factory.
Bw, the whole “cheesiness” thing is true but that can be said of most metal bands. After a while Satanism gets pretty cheesy, but that doesn’t make Slayer any less awesome you get what I mean?
“Mechanize” is a great record. My favorite song is either “Mechanize”, “Fear Campaign”, “Powershifter” or “Final Exit”.
Funny, Fear Factory wasn’t a transition band for me. When I first heard Demanufacture in high school, I was like, “Wow, this is awesome. Not as heavy as some of the shit I’m into, but it’s a fucking amazing record.” I still think so. Between Soul of A New Machine and Obsolete, Fear Factory were untouchable.
We all know what happened after that.
Yet, I am fucking PUMPED for this record having seen the video and read some reviews. It’s surprising in the nicest way possible.
I like it.
What I liked about FF was that they captured the zeitgeist of the late 90s, Everyone was high on E, going to raves, and making millions from dot coms. The soundtrack of the day was music like Orbital, Moby, the Chemical Brothers, the Crystal Method, etc. NIN rode that wave well, but FF incorporated the industrial and techno feel in a more metal way (just look at their first album, the riffs are almost death metal).
Today dot coms and raves are nostalgia for most people, and sadly so is Fear Factory. Times change. While Dino seems to have added to his guitar formula (lead guitar? 10 years late but that’s cool I guess) they haven’t really kept up with where electronica has gone. These days it is all trance like Armin van Buuren and Buckley. These days we aren’t dreaming of the future of the ‘net. It is here, and people are plugged in with iphones, streaming netflix movies, HD everything, and twitter crapola.
So FF is either too young for true nostalgia trips, or not updated enough to capture the zeitgeist of the teens. Of course the spirit of these times is fucking doom and gloom, you’d think that would be their theme; the failure of technology to make our times better. Instead it is the same old theme of the machine controlling you. Man I would be so happy if that was all we had to “fear”.
Ok, I’ll quit before this turns into a nostalgia master’s thesis.
I tried listening to Remanufacture recently.
It made my ears bleed. In both good and bad ways. There was definitely some extreme electronica shit going on there. Innovative and interesting, if not entirely the greatest thing ever.
Remanufacture is a Remix Album…
Sarcasm alert
No? Really? Wow, I wondered why so many of the songs reminded me so much of Demanufacture…
Thank you for enlightening me to that most basic and elemental of facts!
As an explanation, I was referring to this part of his post
“Everyone was high on E, going to raves, and making millions from dot coms. The soundtrack of the day was music like Orbital, Moby, the Chemical Brothers, the Crystal Method, etc.”
and referencing FF’s more elctronic side in the fact that they commissioned a huge number of remixes in their career, not just of Demanufacture either.
“So FF is either too young for true nostalgia trips, or not updated enough to capture the zeitgeist of the teens.”
After reading through all of this, that was pretty much my conclusion too. Demanufacture was a great albumn and a great attempt to mixing metal, industrial, techno and *gasp* singing.
I was particularly a fan Remanufacture. To be completely fair, I’m much more likely to whip out Seputura or Obituary from that time period, but FF was still decent.
Actually, the atmosphere provided by Front Line Assembly’s Rhys Fulber are what MAKE this band’s sound. Without him they’re just a big dumb metal band who happen to have Gene Fucking Hoglan drumming for them now.
I agree with the praise of Rhys, although not the negative comments about the rest of the band.
People that don’t know anything about electronic music/industrial act like FF just willy-nilly throw these synth parts into their albums, like some REALLY inferior bands do (think shit like Mnemic). They don’t realize who Rhys Fulber is (and that he’s a goddamn industrial pioneer), and the fact that FF works with HIM gives their electronic parts AUTOMATIC credibility; the dude isn’t just random producer trying his hand at mixing metal and industrial; he’s been doing it for years (FLA is amazing…been a fan for like 15 years)
I’ll buy anything Gene Hoglan is involved in.
that was actually very well put. I never really thought about it, but Fear Factory actually introduced me into the realms of extreme metal too. Obselete was definitely the first really heavy record I liked. Before that it was nothing but GNR and Metallica for me. But then Fear Factory came along and I definitely began to appreciate heavier stuff. pretty soon after it turned to Slayer and Hatebreed and Amon Amarth.
I wasn’t intending to pick up this album. everything I’ve heard sounds like the same old rehashed stuff. They sound like they are plagiarizing themselves from 1998. but after reading this I think I’ll check it out.
and for the record, I still love fear factory . and even though I listen to more extreme metal now, I still think they are a great band. Heavier does not equal better. Fear Factory have their own sound and they were huge innovators of metal in the 90’s. Fear Factory along with Ministry pretty much created and entire genre of metal .
As usual, an awesomely written review! I can always count on you guys to sum it up nicely. Stoked to hear it! Not sure when Dino and Raymond Herrerra fell apart but me thinks it was the first Asesino record…Raymond’s blast beats were somewhat on the lacking side… Gene Hoglan is the perfect replacement, Arkae is probably a better fit for Raymond. But I’m giving full credit to Raymond for Innovating one of the first uses of the rolling double bass patterns in FF early on.
So is this cover art leftover from Archetype? It’s the same damn thing except instead of being red it’s black.
Gene Hoglan could make Nickelback good. In fact, all drummers should just be replaced with tapes of Hoglan playing one of a series of beats.
he he he…good one : )
I wouldn’t mind writing a “gateway-to-heavier-stuff” album like “Demanufacture”.
For real. That album is brutal. Seeing them on tour for that album was easily one of the loudest things I have ever heard live.
“Burton C. Bell’s singing sounds like Justin Broadrick’s slow brother moaning in a karaoke contest”
probably the best thing ive ever read on this site
surprised no one nitpicked about christian not being the original bassist, but whatever, hes the one that matters
Korn and System were my gateways. Then I found Tool and that was that.
Hmm, you had to stop at slipknot? I’m so sorry for you. My “gateway” was Metallica’s black album. From there, I got into AJFA, and the rest is history lol.
I’m definitely in the category of fans for whom FF was a gateway band. I was into hard rock (GnR, Tool, etc) growing up, started getting into industrial (Godflesh, FLA, etc), then ran into FF which turned me on to other bands like Sepultura, Pantera, Slayer, Morbid Angel….
I had completely expected to listen to Mechanize for 5 mins and turn it off but it’s actually not bad. I won’t listen to it on a regular basis but I may throw it on once in a while for fun.
Good reference to Carmageddon up there, but does anyone remember the game Messiah (also w/ FF in the soundtrack)?
“Though half the original lineup is gone, the spirit remains the same, if not drastically improved.”
Strapping Young Factory FTW!
That is all
Eh. Never got into them really, but you’re dead on with the drumming, Gene is a monster.
Out of curiosity, if Axl G. Rosenburg is a pseudonym, what’s the G for?
Shouldn’t it be W. Axl Rosenberg?
great review…..I think Carmageddon introduced a lot of people….
Jeez is it really that hard to just listen to Slayer
Do these “Slayer is the be-all, end-all metal band” idiots really still exist? Wait, nevermind. These must be the D-Bags that yell, “Slayer!” at every metal show, regardless of who is on stage (thinking that they are funny and original as hell).
how is this a thoughtful review? he list a bunch of reasons why faer factory are shit, and then says he likes them anyway, coz he thought they were good when he was a kid
does that mean that s club 7 are a good metal band?
I think you missed the whole part about why he thinks Mechanize is a quality album. See paragraphs 3 & 4.
Fear Factory’s first 3 albums to me as a teenager in the 90’s were a beacon of light. Yes I had heard of Industrial and Death Metal before. Hell I live in Florida and in the mid-90’s I couldn’t walk down my middle-school/highschool hallways without that one asshole wearing a Cannibal Corpse shirt so I knew perfectly well what I was in store for, I just didn’t know how damn good they combined them together and the first time I ever heard “Demanufactured” I was in tears because that album was so fucking heavy. But after that moment everytime I listened to Fear Factory, I walked around as if I was an army of 10,000 green berets ready to bring the pain.
But somewhere in the late 90’s/early 00’s my interests begin to say, go further down the rabbit hole of music. I’m not going to list my musical degereation but lets just say I started off as an angry kid listening to Alice in Chains then progressing to Fear Factory and now I listen to bands such as Arckanum, Krieg, Horna, and early Katatonia.
Fear Factory is and always will be a ‘gateway’ band to more noiseier, and faster bands, but for whatever you say about Fear factory, there first 3 albums still put a lot of shit to shame these days.
Demanufacture was really my first initiation into Industrial Metal at the same time I was listening to NIN’s Pretty Hate Machine and wasn’t really getting it. FF satisfied all the metal I was needing from prior Pantera and Sepultura upbringings while adding that “cheesy” sci-fi element. Personally I really liked that element and it added a dreamlike dimension to metal that I feel had been missing in a long time.
By the time Obsolete came out, I had immense boner for it and the slick production with nice upright bass along with synth power really struck home with a 19 year old kid that liked metal a ton, but also liked metal that branched out.
Don’t agree with article stating that FF was a gateway metal band, if anything, I went there after dwelling in Pantera/Carcass/Sepultura/Megadeth/Metallica for something the same, but enhanced/different.
I don’t get this whole “I now listen to heavier music so I have no need for Fear Factory” thing. I don’t listen to them because they’re heavy, I listen to them because they’re good.
I agree. That sentiment (not listening to them anymore because you have “moved on”) is only something a real jaded, elitist asshole would believe in. If one never liked FF, that’s fine. By liking them and “moving on?” I don’t buy it. Same goes for a band like System of a Down (or even Slipknot). SOAD helped get me into heavier, more extreme (perhaps underground) stuff, but that doesn’t mean SOAD isn’t a great band in their own right. Heavier doesn’t always mean better.
+1
spot on Rik!
I am really enjoying this album..my favorite FF since Obsolete. I have always like FF for the most part, the only album I really HATED was “Digimortal,” and “Transgression” wasn’t exactly interesting. FF are also one of my favorite live bands, mainly because they are one of the first REAL, loud, metal bands I saw in a live setting. I still remember the ringing in my ears after one of their shows at Roseland (NYC); continued for days..An incredibly loud show.
I always thought Herrera was an excellent drummer, and he and Wolbers created an awesome low-end. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be able to fill in properly for Herrera, but Hoglan has done an awesome job. He’s obviously no slouch, so when they named him, I wasn’t surprised that Herrera’s void was filled properly (if not exceeded). Stroud is great as well.
Ok, so it seems I may be somewhat older than most posting on here. Let me say, in the 80’s the best we had was Slayer (if you prefer the heavier stuff, which I do). Of course we listened to MetalIica, Megadeth, etc, etc., but for heavy dark stuff there’s nothing like Slayer. I’ve always listened to pretty much everything, but as far as metal goes I prefer regular & death metal. I wouldn’t say FF is a transition type of band, they were just different. I prefer their “heavier” songs, but I like them either way. Except, of course, when Dino left. Let’s be honest, the albums after Dino were pretty much bad, with an occasional decent song which just simply had rip offs from what Dino had done. I respect all members of FF, as I respect all musicians. It’s a special talent to creat something from nothing, but we all have our opinions and I did not even want to listen to the last two albums even thought I gave it a couple of chances. They were forgettable! Dino has incorperated some new stuff to his repertoire and I like it. The way I see it, that’s the whole point to us, to humanity. We should all be learning and evolving, if not then we should just shoot ourselves for being a detriment to society as a whole. One thing I can say about Mechanize is, it’s the first time in a looong time that I slap on an album, listen to it from start to finish and didn’t realize that I let it go through two more times. I really was amazed and couldn’t get enough. It’s just a solid album period. Also, for those that mentioned something about Christian being the “original” bass player, he’s not. I don’t remember the name but there was a bass player prior to him joining the band. And if you guys are interested in hearing Dino heavier, listen to Asesino, that shit is brutal. No matter what, I see this as a positive outlook for metal which should benefit all of us, the fans, and we should be happy that bands will be trying to make an effort to improve their music. WE benefit from this so it’s ok with me.
One of the tightest industrial metal albums since City
One of my favorite bands from my youth. I wrote them off after the cash grab of Obsolete (though it still had a few good songs). Digimortal was criminally bad, Archetype suffered from the most moronic guitar playing ever recorded by a major band, and Transgression was a perfect storm of shit production and shit songs.
Soul of a New Machine and Demanufacture perfectly captured the time and place in the early-mid 90’s. Electronics and technology were just starting their spread pre-millenial anxiety was getting amped up, all of the people in my age group felt so disconnected from our parents youths of the 60’s and 70’s. The band had this clinical, oppressive feel that struck a chord with me. I remember seeing them on the Machines of Hate tour when I was 14 and not being able to believe what I had just seen. This new album recaptures some of that magic. I remember when Obsolete came out the band was proclaiming how they wanted a more “organic” sound. This was an awful mistake and was pretty much code for “nu-metal beats and a loosened snare”.
Now as someone old enough to have nostalgia (I’m 28) I have to say- if this is what nostalgia feels and sounds like, bring it the fuck on.
Oh, and all you “They were a gateway band but I’ve moved on” people are assholes. If you stop liking stuff just because it’s not as heavy, then you never really liked it to begin with.
i completly agree with this comment! espcially this quote “Oh, and all you “They were a gateway band but I’ve moved on” people are assholes. If you stop liking stuff just because it’s not as heavy, then you never really liked it to begin with” personally i love fear factory and think mechanize was amazing and their best cd since demanufacture!! fuck all the haters
LOL I’m 26, and oddly enough this was kind of the gateway band for me to get into heavier music. Yes it was the year of 1995, when I heard Demanufacture, and was truly blown away by it. Such a young age at that time. Then it became Napalm Death, Carcass, probably most of the Earache Catalog. etc, etc, etc. Most people around that time, enjoyed the early beginnings of Korn, and the Deftones. Hell one kid I knew was into Biohazard, and Sepultura. Obsolete was pretty good, but however Digimortal sucked massive balls. Archetype was a bad attempt at guitar playing. Transgression LOL child please that record is fucking horrid. The new record? Not bad, and granted I enjoy Gene Hoglan’s drumming quite alot. I mean the dude has been in Death, and SYL for a good part of his career. Atleast I heard this, and bought the new Meshuggah DVD/CD this week. New Arsis oh god, I wouldn’t touch it because it sounds so fucking horrible.
Fear Factory is killer, as is Slipknot. Two completely different bands and those who compare the two are fucking morons. The Slipknot haters claiming that they “suck,” say whatever helps you sleep at night. At the end of the day it still stands to reason Slipknot is a damn talented band, end of fuckin story. And there is no such thing as a “gateway” metal band. If you hate on a band because they get a little soft you are an elitist piece of shit and your opinion therefore becomes invalid. People hated on Fear Factory’s “Transgression” because it was “softer” than their other releases. Boo freekin hoo…oh and it had TWO cover songs! Someone inform the FBI! Seriously really picky ass elitists need to stop listening to metal altogether until they can pull their heads out of their asses, and perhaps then they will actually be able to fully LISTEN for once.