It's not anything special as it's somewhat basic for death metal riffing standards, but Fear Factory made full advantage of their supreme knowledge of how to make simplicity work by creating what is hands down one of the catchiest death metal albums ever made. It isn't overproduced, and it doesn't even try to be accessible as it obviously could've been conceived and packaged in a much more obvious and presentable way. The remixes found on Fear Is the Mindkiller would successfully transform some of this material into more atmospheric and industrial pieces, but Fear Factory would unfortunately find their horrible niche with the next full length, and all would be downhill from then on. From the grating, Godflesh influenced riffing and melodies on “Leechmaster,” to the abrasive, up-tempo chaos of “Flesh Hold,” this album is loaded with many, memorable tracks. Other moments of interest include the dark ringing notes that open 'Escape Confusion' and the great throaty bass tone that appears by itself in some of the introductions and transitions. The first thing that grabs me is the hihat sound. The leads haves plenty of groovy chugs to their makeup, but the industrial tweaks and hollow production makes many of the riffs sound almost like a machine in nature. After a couple of demos, the band would release their debut in 1992 “Soul of a New Machine” and the rest was history. This album is pretty awkward, very clumsy and perhaps a bit compromised in its weirdness, but it still manages to hold up well against more obvious death metal masterpieces of its time as well as before and after its release. Desecrate begins with a short battle of riffs between guitar and bass. In 1994, Andrew Shives was forced to leave the band. It takes the music a logical step further, to amazing results (courtesy of Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber of Front Line Assembly). It really defines how death metal was back in the 90's. Most of the album's guitar pieces are strong on impact and go for a sound that revolves around sledge grooves rather than the jackhammer riffing of later material, giving the guitars less of a sound like a robotic drill punching into concrete and more like some giant junkyard monstrosity that crushes other hunks of rusting metal into cubes. Fear Factory: Soul Of A New Machine ‎ (CD, Album) Roadrunner Records: RR 9160-2: Brazil: 1993: Sell This Version: MG 2643-1155: Fear Factory: Soul Of A New Machine ‎ (Cass, Album, Unofficial) MG Records (2) MG 2643-1155: Poland: Unknown: Sell This Version: Recommendations Reviews Add Review. After an unsatisfactory demo recording session at Blackie Lawless’ Fort Apache Studio in Hollywood, California with producer Ross Robinson, the band relocated to a different studio with Colin Richardson overseeing the mix. (more info on this can be read on the “Concrete” album that was released in 2005). The standard slow and heavy lines are present in most songs. The bass guitar has that thick, murky sound one associates with Napalm Death circa “Utopia Banished” and “Harmony Corruption”. Arise Above Oppression 34:1912. It kind of blew out of proportion, and that's not what I meant. Review originally written for Least Worst Option - www.leastworstoption.com. The nostalgic representation of a metal fan, as he spins Demanufacture or Obsolete and takes his mind back to the days of just discovering the weird and wonderful world of extreme metal. The most notable things about Fear Factory's first album are that it is a full-fledged death metal album, that it has industrial and electronic influences far ahead of its time, and that it's clearly heavily influenced by early grindcore and doom bands. To comment on a Being the last of its kind Bell would trade in his grunt for a harsh shout, and he would increasingly put more focus on the clean vocal hooks that first surfaced here. Soul of a New Machine is distinct from the rest of Fear Factory's discography in that this album is death metal with only a slight industrial undercurrent. To many reading this, Fear Factory would fall into the echelon of nostalgia – not that this is a bad group to be lumped in, to be truthful, because it’s the kind of band that you can go back to every once in a while and get caught in the industrial-esque delights this band can conjure, and you can reminisce. I hope there will be a LP reissue of this great album! If you're simply looking for some kick-ass metal, though, there's plenty of that here too, especially the first half of the album, with "Martyr," "Scapegoat," and "Scumgrief" standing out as particular highlights. All in all the very idea of taking bands as obscure sounding as Godflesh and Napalm Death, mixing them together, and adding the trademark Dino robot riffs, along with melodic traces of alternative metal constituted such a novelty, such an incredibly fresh and potent musical concept that despite its cited influences, didn't quite sound like anything else. Fear Factory were quite ahead of their time in 1992, the year Roadrunner Records released Soul, their debut album (though not technically their first, which would be the later-unearthed, Ross Robinson-produced Concrete demo album). Trimming down some unnecessary length would keep it from becoming too long and make the strong tracks that are buried within more memorable. Finally there is a remastered version of this album with better and improved production. The idea of locking in the syncopated guitar riffs with the drums, notably the staccato styled picking patterns with the double kicks, was beginning to establish itself here, although not as obvious as on the later records. The instrumentation is mixed, as I said the typical early 90's guitar doesn't have much to prove in terms of technicality, but the catchiness we get in return more than makes up for it, couple with that a genuinely great bass sound and an impressive drum peformance and you have something that simply works. Clean vocals had been used in death metal before, but Fear Factory decided to make them a feature of the album, not just to simply to add variation to their sound, but to add depth to their overall theme. This is but one example of a plethora of great riffs scattered throughout. The mediocre lyrics can be blamed on the nu metal aesthetics already present here, but it's largely overshadowed by the immensely good chunk of material that this release contains. Asked if he thinks FEAR FACTORY will be able to come back "properly" in the not-too-distant future, Dino said: "We'll see. This is not a release with many memorable riffs or vocal passages (apart from the clean refrains). The new Fear Factory has largely abandoned the direct "Man versus Machine" theme prevalent on earlier releases in favor of subjects such as religion, war, and corporatism. Like the city of Los Angeles in Blade Runner, Soul of a New Machine is a harsh, technology dominated realm; a death metal machine infused with various industrial and electronic elements. “Soul Of A New Machine” is dedicated to the memory of Dino Cazares’ parents. I think maybe 1 or 2 of the weaker songs could have been scrapped. It would have been advisable to cut at least four or five songs to increase the impact of individual moments, as well as for the band to more clearly define the direction of some of them, such as 'Suffer Age', which is set up with skill and intricacy and then descends almost into a grindcore song, disregarding the suspense of its long introduction for a gruff blast through two minutes of misdirected intensity. Fear Factory were quite ahead of their time in 1992, the year Roadrunner Records released Soul, their debut album (though not technically their first, which would be the later-unearthed, Ross Robinson-produced Concrete demo album). According to Dino, he has been using the coronavirus downtime to work on new riffs. Especially in extended constant high bpm sections. That's the album in a nutshell - angry and hackneyed groove patterns and variations of similar rhythms patterns drone on before a melodic chorus and back again with any variations to the formula coming through incomplete failed experiments, never mind this band's attempt to make death metal "nice" being a failure of an idea to begin with. There's nothing more satisfying than screaming "I loved you once, now go away. "Me being quarantined, I've been really lucky, 'cause my engineer lives next door, so I was able to go over there and write a lot of music," he explained. This is a band that isn't interested in punishing religion, worshipping Satan or singing about Vikings. It is my life. Where other death metal bands were content to essentially hit record and put songs together, Fear Factory saw a song as an opportunity to express something very multi-layered, and they wasted no moment in adding as many effects and ideas as possible to each. Let me go on to the "impenetrable" and "really quite long" comments now, because those are quite the issue when listening to the album as a whole. Fear Factory: Soul Of A New Machine ‎ (CD, Album) Roadrunner Records: RR 9160-2: Brazil: 1993: Sell This Version: Recommendations Reviews Show All 2 Reviews . and the inane chorus to "Self-Immolation" which -I am not kidding- has "Self-Immolation, Crying Out!" "I've been writing for everything — for ASESINO, for DIVINE HERESY and for possible FEAR FACTORY. It is, however, great to hear where FF started. It's a bit awkward in places but mostly he pulls it off. This is what made this band stand out within the death metal community back in the days.... Best tracks: Martyr, Crisis, Crash Test, Self Immolation, “The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long.” - Eldon Tyrell 'Cause people really didn't discover us till 'Demanufacture'; not a lot of people really know about 'Soul Of A New Machine'. Some variation to the formula occurs on select tracks like 'Desecrate' which sounds like a mash-up between Deicide and Napalm Death, one of few songs with melody embedded into a blasting angry verse riff but soon devolves into generic mosh death during the bridge that's not unlike Benediction. The opening to “Leechmaster” is a good example, as the chugging sections lead well into the vocals. Martyr opens up with a quite brutal riff that jumps into soft, but guttural grunting and then it starts getting aggressive. It chronicles the experiences of a computer engineering team racing to design a next-generation computer at a blistering pace under tremendous pressure. It's clear that these lyrics are already full-fledged nu metal and the vocals also hint towards the genre, but that's basically it for the more obvious flaws. But then again, it is pointless already to get the remastered version. This is one of the few, more memorable riffs found throughout the album as I find it is the songs as a whole that stand out rather than individual sections. It's a good thing that they managed to get things put together so well, because this album is really much more than the sum of its parts. At least Fear Factory would be able to write its signature album, and a worthy follow-up. The songs were as much about the tone and sounds of the instruments, the arrangements and atmosphere, as about composition. The first 8 songs aside from the sample-heavy 'Crisis' and directionless 'Crash Test' arguably fit the criteria best, while the latter half gets more intense in its death metal blasting, though not exactly better, 'Desecrate' or 'Big God/Raped Souls' proving the most ferocious. There are a large number of features to this release that other bands hadn't bothered with at this time. The song then move itself into a more groove oriented, but still heavy as hell section. This is a really good Fear Factory album. 'Scapegoat' has a great clean-sung chorus about judicial error, while 'Martyr' and 'Scumgrief' might get first place in the groove stakes. I hope there will be a LP reissue of this great album! You can feel it like a frog in your throat. Statistics Have: 22; Want: 19; … Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment.