Fear Factory Demanufacture 1995 Album Review

Fear Factory
Demanufacture
1995

Heavy metal hardcore slams into action at the moment the play button is pressed. Some mechanistic  clanks provide the backdrop to a rolling guitar and drum combination that instantly injects a pile driver into the room. Vocals begin, and we can hear the words, angry and gruff lyrical expression rhythmically pulses with the repetitious riffs.  It's easy to envisage a room of rock hard heavy metal fans bouncing around and into each other to this powerful and immense onslaught of music. The title track begins the CD, and with mountainous drums that smash a path through the noisy bursts of dropped guitars, the sound of this band is hammered home. 

Self Bias Resistor begins and the sound remains the same only this time it's a denser and more rich layer of percussion. The guitar rages with palm muted glissando and finger walks  between fleshy progressions. Burton C. Bell on vocals makes a statement with each line, he seems to be attacking the power structures that govern people's lives. He is speaking directly to the victim within, who perhaps lays silent but still hurts after everything that's happened. It turns dark towards the end with some ghostly like moans before the album progresses onto the next track. 

Keyboard and sample give extra decoration to the otherwise bare bones sounding guitar and drum based music. Everything is fast and full of energy, the background noises and sounds give atmosphere, complete with futuristic edges. The art on the front of the album shows a fusion between organic with mechanical, and the sound has fused these two concepts well. Angst driven songs that tap into a primal desire to shake your head around to insane beats play one after the other, every one has an edge that stands it apart from the last but the flow and consistency of Fear Factory as a band is fairly stable. 

One minute he's singing, the next he's roaring like a demon, the guitar and bass rip the calm with slicing bursts of whisked whirligig explosions, and the drums use the snare to snap every beat and every beat between to a strict schedule of synchronous pounding. The whole music sits within a structured grid of sound that means the stage presence must be something of a spectacle, with everyone doing exactly the same thing with their given instrument. 

A samey but worthwhile album, one that deserves to sit on the shelf in any rocker's home, and with classic moments within the songs that really make us love it. There are sections that drag, and perhaps it's simply because it's not being played loud enough. It can be said for definite that if you want to annoy the neighbours, or your parents, then this played loud is a good bet.  

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