FEAR FACTORY - The Industrialist

Now at their eighth studio release, Burton C. Bell and Dino Cazares’ band appears to remain at a particularly elevated level in 2012. Even though Gene Hoglan has left the outfit, the two leaders have been quick to find a replacement in John Sankey, making The Industrialist one of the best albums of the year. There’s no point in discussing the production, because it is self-evident that it’s top notch, as Fear Factory have accustomed us from their very first release.

If I were to find a flaw in The Industrialist, that would be the bass, rarely making its presence felt, and this despite the fact that it was Dino Cazares who handled recording this instrument. Even so, the album is spectacular, with the guitar riffs from the same Dino being so dangerous that we totally forget about the quasi-non-existent bass. Burton C. Bell also keeps up by alternating rougher vocals with more melodic ones, and the result is extremely pleasant to our ears. While John Sankey is not particularly well-known as a drummer, on this record he manages to make us forget Raymond Herrera and Gene Hoglan, proving a great deal of maturity.

My favourite song is by far New Messiah, but I also like God Eater, Depraved Mind Murder or Disassemble. On the flipside, there’s Human Augmentation, a nine-minute epic with not much to say, just some undistinguishable noise in the background and some robotic voice. If this were an ambient music, this might have been the centre piece, no argument about that. But this is Fear Factory, one of the best groove-industrial metal bands in the world … if not THE best!

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