bunkaroo

1. "The Industrialist"
2. "Recharger"
3. "New Messiah"
4. "God Eater"
5. "Depraved Mind Murder"
6. "Virus of Faith"
7. "Difference Engine"
8. "Disassemble"
9. "Religion is Flawed Because Man is Flawed"
10. "Human Augmentation"

bunkaroo

First listen wasn't too impressive. "Recharger" is cool but not feeling like there's a lot of memorable stuff here. I always seem to say stuff like that about new releases from artists I love, so maybe it'll grow on me.

Was really disappointed in the last track. When I saw it was over 9 minutes, I was expecting a really cool epic finale to the disc which is a concept album. That's definitely not what it is. I won't spoil it but it was definitely underwhelming.

On the plus side the sound quality is top notch. Still have to hear the bonus tracks when I get the deluxe edition Tuesday.

Mike UFC

I haven't listened to a Fear Factory since Archetype. Their back to back masterpieces Demanufacture and Obsolete screwed up my expectations for them and everything since then just hasn't come close to those standards for me.

bunkaroo

You should check out Mechanize - pretty decent return to form and better than this one I think.

Mike UFC

I will. These guys were my favorite band on the planet for a while. Then Digimortal came out and all the in-fighting after that.

joeblow69

I refuse to buy another Fear Factory release until they come up with a different album cover theme. This FF stuff is tired.

mndtrp

Mechanize was a great album, and I'll pick up the new one sooner or later.

I'm amazed that Burton still can't sing very well live. His clean singing is awful.

bunkaroo

I think his vocals have lost something on this latest record too.

islandclaws

Demanufacture was really the only album of theirs I ever liked. I checked out the latest one before this when it came out, and it just didn't do anything for me. I used to love me some "Martyr" back in the day, though.

bunkaroo

I never thought they could top Demanufacture myself. It's just too good. Seriously, top 10 all time metal record for me. I don't know what the circumstances were that led to that record coming out the way it did, but damn.

joeblow69

yep, sucks for them to have put out their pinnacle album so early in their career.

boc4ever

Mechanize was freaking awesome. Here's the video for Fear Campaign:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmZQrxu2ljs

mzupeman2

In my opinion, the new album isn't as good as Mechanize and wasn't very impressive with the first listen. It has grown a bit more on me though, and I do like the story the album is telling.

boc4ever

Hmmm, well I ordered and am hoping for the best. Thanks for the heads up.

bunkaroo

Same here. I listened to Mechanize for the first time in a little while though and comparatively Mechanize comes off so much better. It might be the best thing they did since Obsolete.

mzupeman2

No doubt Mechanize was their best album since Obsolete. The thing that really confuses me is that Bell said Mechanize that although he loved that album, he thought that FF could do so much better. Does he really think The Industrialist is that much better then? I don't know. Be interesting to hear his thoughts on that someday.

bunkaroo

Yeah I remember him saying that too which might be why I had such high expectations.

I'm also pretty bummed this is the second record in a row Dino has recorded bass. There needs to be a little more variety than him just doubling all the guitar parts.

adrenaline78

Crap.. I didn't know they put out anything since Transgression and that CD is now permanently stuck in my CD player in my car..

mzupeman2

Oh dude, you totally missed out then. You need to go listen to Mechanize immediately. Definitely my fav album of theirs since Obsolete.

So I've been listening to the Fear Factory and it still continues to grow on me more and more. I mean, it's not a bad album even on first listen... it's just that there's nothing on the first listen that really jumped out and impressed me. It just sounded like the same typical Fear Factory we've known forever now... which is both good and bad in certain ways. And really, this album isn't sonically superior to some of their previous efforts... certainly not Demanufacture or Obsolete, and in some ways, not even better than Mechanize, although it's certainly a decent follow-up.

But still, CONCEPTUALLY, I'm really digging this freakin' album.

DarthMarino

Mechanize was a very solid album and this is really more of the same. That's both a good and a bad thing. It's a good listen but lacks it's own identity at least as far as the sound goes. I still think Archetype was a very under appreciated album and bit above both this and Mechanize. Still, it's nice to hear that they are still going strong (even if the "they" seems to change all too frequently these days).

bunkaroo

The more I think about it Archetype is probably above Mechanize in my ranking as well.

I'll do the obligatory ranking now:

Demanufacture
Obsolete
Archetype
Mechanize
Digimortal
The Industrialist
Transgression
Soul of a New Machine

I know a lot of long time fans really like SoaNM but it's never really grabbed me. In fact, if I had heard that before Demanufacture, I might have been hesitant to give them another listen. It's cool, but to me it's more of a prototype record.

I almost consider the first Divine Heresy record another FF record as well. I'd probably put that between Digimortal and The Industrialist. I loved Tommy Vext's vocals on it. The second DH record had terrible vocals - only listened to it once.

boc4ever

Ok, now I have a mission. I am going to revisit all of these and see if I see Archetype and Transgression differently. I definitely would rank Soul much higher. Although it is much rawer and the vocals rougher, that was my first introduction to them. It set the stage for the rest of their catalogue. I will say that I recently listened to Obsolete and really found that much better than I remembered.

bunkaroo

I think for me Soul just seems a lot less interesting musically, and I don't particularly care for what little melody there is in it.

Now on the two Dino-less FF records, I think there's a lot of good material. Actually I think every tune on Archetype is good to awesome. I even like the Nirvana cover!

On Transgression, I think the first two songs are great. After that I think some of the songs are fairly forgettable. I do not like the U2 cover much at all. "Supernova" seems like something they wrote while under the influence of the U2 cover.

I do like "Echo of My Scream", except that every time I hear it I think he's singing "an Eggo.....an Eggo".

DarthMarino

Demanufacture
Obsolete
Archetype
Mechanize
The Industrialist
Digimortal
Soul of a New Machine
Transgression
Concrete (if this even counts)

mndtrp

This is what I would go with, although I would put Mechanize above Archetype. While I like Archetype quite a bit, the middle section tends to lose me.