Artist: Fear Factory
Label: Roadrunner Records
Release Date: 1995
Rating: 5 Skulls
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Title: Demanufacture Artist: Fear Factory Label: Roadrunner Records Release Date: 1995 Rating: 5 Skulls |
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Redwolff's Review:
When I thought about how I obtained Demanufacture, I shamefully realized it was in a most non-metal way; I did not buy it in some underground music store from a guy with multiple facial piercings, I got it from Columbia House. Actually Columbia House sent me something totally lame instead, by accident, and when I called to complain, they sent me two copies of Demanufacture by accident - one of which I gave to my co-worker just to spread the Fear Factory meme. That's pretty metal, right?My previous experience with Fear Factory was Soul of a New Machine, a great but slightly immature album. On Demanufacture, the band incorporated the sound I had heard and loved on their '92 release, but had polished and expanded their style. This album demonstrated Fear Factory's versatility and their ability to retain heaviness even on more atmospheric tracks like "A Therapy for Pain." Burton C. Bell's purposely off-key (I have always assumed it was purposely) clean vocals added a minor chord to every song, and Raymond Herrera's tight, machine-like drumming played a major role on this album, and deservedly so.
Demanufacture is now 10 years old and yet does not sound dated. Fear Factory were ahead of their time on this one. The band solidified their character sound with this album, except for one track - "Dog Day Sunrise". The lyrics are not included in the CD booklet for this one, as if the band was embarrassed by the track, which they should be. It was obviously pushed on them by some management or promo type, trying to give Fear Factory a radio single. What a piece of crap this song is. Thankfully, the rest of the album kicks ass, so I'm going to just ignore that track and give this a five skull rating, because as long as you skip track six it's a masterpiece, and a very influential album.
And that leads us to...
Redwolff's Review:
Title: Remanufacture
Artist: Fear Factory
Label: Roadrunner Records
Release Date: 1997
Rating: 4 Skulls
As a matter of fact, I liked Demanufacture so much that I bought Remanufacture. For those who are not familiar with the album, it's Demanufacture gone dance. The first time I heard this was on the night of the fateful Holyfield/Tyson fight involving ear-nibbling. My friend had invited a bunch of us over to watch the fight, and some of them were having a pre-fisticuffs smoke (using a bong made of a gallon wine jug and laboratory equipment, which attests to both the alcohol consumption and weed-smoking dedication of the household) while listening to this album. It was not terribly well-received, in fact someone in the livingroom yelled out "You guys, turn off the fucking techno!" I went out and bought it the next day, this time at an underground music store from a guy with facial piercings.Yeah, it's techno, mixed by a number of different DJs, but Fear Factory had a big hand in this album, providing the cover concept, liner notes, some re-mixing and additional vocals. The result is techno with a definite metal edge, which not everyone can achieve (see, for example, my summary judgment of Worm this week). I don't know of many people that like this album, as most metalheads I know don't listen to electronica or techno, and probably many people were angry with the band for it. As it's a mix of my two favorite genres, Remanufacture could have been created just for me. It's a perfect combination of head-banging riffs and danceable beats. Techno doesn't age as well as metal though, the genre is too new and evolving too rapidly, so I can only give this a four-skull rating. It hasn't stood the test of time as well as Demanufacture even though it's two years younger. Still, I love it, and couldn't resist including it in this classic review, just for fun.
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