Album of the Week #22 - Fear Factory - Demanufacture

Karl Hungus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_1e3Qd5mh8

s8n

Stunning album. Heavy as a barrel of bricks with great vocals from Burton C. Bell. I saw them live around this period and they were just as good. It's a pity they fell apart after this release. Replica and Self Bias Resistor were great tracks and I still listen to this album quite a bit.

smackbunnybaby

quality album - a real blast from the past when i listen to it.
i taped the opening track off the metal show on 2fm one sunday night - the song demanufacture itself. great track.

i miss the metal show and the sound cellar top 10 - i learned so much from that top 10 each week.

are there any decent metal shows on national radio anymore?
i dont live in dublin so local pirates wont do.

Malice

I've been voting for this one on and off since the whole Album of the Week thing started and I'm delighted it's gotten the recognition it deserves. I love this album for so many reasons - the industrial synth effects and sound samples adding texture and atmosphere to almost every track, the machine-like drumming, the insanely fast yet mechanically tight guitar riffs and the amazing vocals all combine for a fantastic sonic package.
I first got this album on tape sometime in 1995. When Quake came out in 1996, I had just bought the album on CD. I played through the whole game with the Demanufacture CD supplying music in the background. It fitted perfectly as far as I was concerned .
Fear Factory were also one of the main reasons why I learnt to play the guitar. I regularly use Pisschrist and Self Bias Resistor as warm up tracks to play along to. How Dino and Christian manage to keep up such a frantic pace for a full live show is beyond me!

s8n wrote: »

It's a pity they fell apart after this release.

They did? Personally I thought Obsolete was another fantastic album.

smackbunnybaby wrote: »

are there any decent metal shows on national radio anymore?
i dont live in dublin so local pirates wont do.

I'd like to know this too. I fear the answer is probably that there's no metal shows on the radio full stop, never mind decent ones .

Anyway, back to Fear Factory, if anyone reads this and doesn't own the album: Buy it! You won't regret it!

s8n

They did? Personally I thought Obsolete was another fantastic album.

It has some great tracks but as a concept it was rubbish. Digimortal was embarrasing and the band broke up re-forming minus Dino. Haven't been the same since.

Malice

s8n wrote: »

It has some great tracks but as a concept it was rubbish.

But it was effectively the same Man v Machine concept that was behind Demanufacture . Okay, there was a storyline put to it so maybe that was what you didn't like?

s8n wrote: »

Digimortal was embarrasing and the band broke up re-forming minus Dino. Haven't been the same since.

I don't think Digimortal was that bad but I'm definitely in a minority there . I definitely agree that they haven't been the same since Dino left. Archetype has some good tracks but Trangression was very weak.

Mr. CooL ICE

Great album. Bought it one day without knowing a thing about the band, and realised that 3 of the songs were actually off the original Carmageddon soundtrack, minus the vocals! The Carmageddon soundtrack was pretty sweet at the time, so a whole album of this stuff with vocals was a welcome treat.


P.S. Digimortal is one of those rare albums that actually causes me to laugh when I listen to it. What the hell were they thinking?

kevin_de_big

Astounding album. Seriously a must-have.

demanufactured

****ing great album , so good i named myself after it.

Jrad

Not the greatest thing for a hangover but Bodyhammer is a real chugger!

Malice

Has anyone ever come across a band that achieved a similar sound to Fear Factory on Demanufacture? Divine Heresy have the machine-like combination of fast chugging guitars and bass drums but they are missing the industrial synth textures. I've got some Frontline Assembly but they obviously lack the metal edge, being an industrial band. Spineshank came close with the drums and vocals but didn't use many synths. Nine Inch Nails have the synths but lack the fast-paced guitars and drums.

I'm sure there's other bands that I've forgotten or don't know about so any suggestions are gratefully appreciated!

Fad

ah the opening song on that album is definitly my favourite, (forgotten the damn name)

gokgok

Great album. I also loved the remix EP brought out on Mokum. The speed of the drumming works great with the gabba sound. There's only one of them track on the remanufacture cd, which isn't great compared to fear is the mind killer.