Artist: Fear Factory
Label: Roadrunner Records
Release Date: 1992
Rating: 4 Skulls
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Title: Soul of a New Machine Artist: Fear Factory Label: Roadrunner Records Release Date: 1992
Rating: 4 Skulls |
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Reviewed by Redwolff:
If I was in a movie where I was walking down the street with some serious firepower, exacting revenge, or going off to fight zombies, or just generally kicking ass, I'd want the opening bars of "Scumgrief" playing as my theme song. This album has fallen in and out of favor with me over the years, depending on my attitude towards death metal vocals, but that song has stuck in my head no matter what. On the strength of that one song alone, I went out recently and bought the album again, which was lost in the shuffle of moving from Boston to New York a few years ago. "Scumgrief" still sounds great - and the rest of the album is very good as well. It's amazing to think the same band that put out Soul of a New Machine degraded into the guys that issued Digimortal. No wonder Burton left the band.The photos of the members on the back of the CD make the band look so young; that's not the only betrayal of their youth, however. The obvious obsession with military themes, shown in lines like "soldiers marching on," audio samples from Apocalypse Now and the "This is my rifle, there are many like it but this one is mine" pledge make it sound as though between tracks the boys were running around the studio playing laser tag. Their almost over-usage of audio clips in general expose the band as young and still searching for their own sound; that seems to be something bands eventually grow out of, thank goodness. They were also experimenting with the vocals at this point; they are more death-oriented than in subsequent recordings, while some of the clean vocals are purposefully off-key - an odd choice. The roar at the opening of "Scapegoat," at a high enough volume, does give me a shiver of pleasure, but in general I think I like the later vocal sound better. What they kept from this album, the dark, aggressive, industrial aspect, is what sold me on Fear Factory, and led me to buy three more albums after this one.
Admittedly, this is not a perfect album. Some of the last tracks are just reprises of the earlier ones. New Machine has a very raw sound to it. But I remember, hearing it for the first time, how I felt it was new and interesting and unique, and I embraced it immediately. Fear Factory went on to become one of my favorite bands ever (although I stopped collecting their albums after Obsolete), and it's thanks to this album that they were brought to my attention. For that reason alone Soul of a New Machine holds an esteemed position in my CD collection.
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