UMUR "Digimortal" is the fourth full-length studio album by US, California based death/industrial/groove metal act Fear Factory. The album was released through Roadrunner Records in April 2001. The original version of the album contains 11 tracks while there´s a limited digipack version available with 4 bonus tracks. Fear Factory would be heading into some difficult years as founding member guitarist Dino Cazares would leave the band after this release. So "Digimortal" is the last album to feature what many would probably call the "classic" Fear Factory lineup.

The music on "Digimortal" continues further down the more groovy alternative metal road that was initiated on "Obsolete" (1998). The tracks are generally vers/chorus based 3 to 4 minute long songs with a strong emphasis on brick heavy groovy riffing and the occassional use of futuristic sounding synth effects. There are lots of precise technical playing on display and especially drummer Raymond Herrera puts on quite a show. The vocals vary from aggressive to raw to clean. Lead vocalist Burton C. Bell is not as such a great singer, but he understands how to economize his voice and his performance here is strong and personal. The songs are all quality compositions and if you enjoy your music hard hitting and groove based, "Digimortal" certainly delivers. The alternative metal touch gets an extra notch up on the song "Back the Fuck Up", which features rap vocals performed by B-Real from Cypress Hill.

The sound production is clear, powerful, detailed, and professional (again created by longtime collaborator Rhys Fulber). Triggered drums and lots of meaty heavy riff goove laden power. Upon conclusion "Digimortal" is a very succesful album in terms of consistency and powerful delivery, but evaluating the album I´ve come to the conclusion that the album lacks real highlights and a bit more experimentation would have been great too. Fear Factory purposedly chose to write shorter and more conscise songs though, so if anything it´s the band´s vision playing out. All songs are more or less good quality tracks, but there´s nothing on "Digimortal" that really stands out as anything beyond what you expected from Fear Factory at that point. It´s of course a matter of taste, but I miss some gritty death metal parts in the music too. So "Digimortal" is overall a good qualty album, but it doesn´t reach the heights of the first three albums by the band. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

SilentScream213 I was a fan of Fear factory’s Death Metal influenced, aggressive brand of Industrial Metal prior to this album. But here is where they really decided the guitars were never going to do anything interesting again. They become relegated to a third rhythm instrument, and without much in the way of keys or atmospherics, the album is left very one note. Overly reliant on chugs and near-Djenting drumming and guitar syncopation. Both harsh vocals and clean vocals are sub par, the former moving even further from Death Growls to more typical Groove Metal tough-guy grunts, and the cleans are just not catchy. The Electronic/Industrial sounds that do make appearances are usually annoying, not contributing in a positive way to the music.

These crippling weaknesses are thankfully averted for the final two tracks. Resurrection manages to be catchy with some Alt Metal influence, and the guitars actually create some melodic soundscapes rather than repetitive chugging. The final track “Timelessness” strays even further, opting for an Ambient/Chamber sound, a beautiful, poignant piece that easily manages to be my favorite on the album.

Thanks to these last two tracks, the album has value. But the majority of it falls into that monotonous stereotype of repetitive riff-less chugging that occurs when one mixes Industrial and Groove Metal.

UMUR "Obsolete" is the third full-length studio album by US death/groove/industrial metal act Fear Factory. The album was released in July 1998 through Roadrunner Records. It´s the successor to "Demanufacture" (June 1995, Roadrunner Records) and features the exact same quartet lineup who recorded the predecessor. The original album contains 10 tracks while the limited edition digi-pack features 5 bonus tracks. "Obsolete" has sold enough copies to be certified gold, which is actually quite the achivement for an album this extreme. But it says a lot about how popular Fear Factory were in those years.

The music is a combination of futuristic death metal, industrial metal, and alternative/groove-metal. There´s actually an organic edge to the sound on the album that was definitely not present on "Demanufacture", but the music is still quite mechanical and sharp in execution. We´re still treated to triggered artificial sounding bass drums and a polished futuristic production, so the word organic shouldn´t be misinterpreted here.

The lyrics on the album features a sci-fi concept story about the Edgecrusher and his struggles for freedom in a totalitarian machine dominated world sometime in the future (2076 A.D to be exact). It´s like reading a Philip K. Dick novel or watching a Terminator movie. In addition to the lyrics there are explanations to each song, which is a really great help if you want to understand and follow the story. So there´s a bleak and sinister sci-fi atmoshere on the album and the music follows suit. Not that "Obsolete" is the darkest album that I´ve ever heard, but the point is that the lyrics and the music suit each other well.

"Obsolete" features an increased use of alternative and groove based heavy riffing which are added to Fear Factory´s industrialized death metal style. I´m sure the most old school deathgrind fans, already jumped ship on "Demanufacture", so this is just to say that "Obsolete" travels further down the more groove oriented riff and rhythm style initiated on the predecessor. Some of the highlights of the album are "Securitron (Police State 2000)" and "Descent" but all tracks are of a high quality and work well within the concept story of the album.

I´m not sure Burton C. Bell´s limited clean vocal range should have tried forces with the closing ballad track "Timelessness" though. He is way out of his league on that track and struggles to keep the pitch. His vocal performance on this album is otherwise decent enough. His skills may be limited (which at times limits the music itself), but at least he has a distinct souning voice and a singing style which he doesn´t deviate much from. His raw shouted vocals are pretty strong and when he performs harsher but still clean vocals like he does in "Descent", the outcome is much more successful than when he performs his more sterile cleans.

Upon conclusion "Obsolete" is a both well written, well performed, and well produced release, and it shows development from "Demanufacture", which means that it´s just not a clone of their past success. That´s always praise worthy when you release something on the heels of your commercial breakthrough release. Some artists fall into the trap thinking that their audience just wants version 2 of said release, and releasing a copy of a past success is almost always doomed to failure. Fear Factory steer clear of anything like that and while "Obsolete" isn´t as groundbreaking or as unique as "Demanufacture" is, it´s still a high quality release and a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

SilentScream213 Rhythmically, very energetic and engaging. The album culminates extreme metal drumming and frequent double bass with almost danceable rhythms in between. The patterns are djent style focusing on polyrhythmic patterns and pure aggression. Almost every song has a clean-sung chorus that gives it some identity beyond the constant pummeling. The choruses aren’t catchy, but more atmospheric, using the clean vocals as a sustained melody rather than a hook.

Worst part of this album is the monotonous guitar. Again, very djent in nature, hitting a lot of rhythmic 0’s and featuring no memorable riffs. However, the energy and fantastic drumming help to cover this weakness.

The album is dark and mechanic, but in a fun way, and is quite consistent all the way through, unfortunately ending on the most boring track; the near 10 minute “A Therapy for Pain.”

UMUR "Demanufacture" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US death/groove/industrial metal act Fear Factory. The album was released through Roadrunner Records in June 1995. It´s the successor to "Soul of a New Machine" from 1992, although the "Fear is the Mindkiller" EP from 1993 bridges the gap between the two full-length releases. There has been one lineup change since the predecessor as bassist Christian Olde Wolbers has enlisted, making Fear Factory a four-piece on "Demanufacture".

When "Soul of a New Machine" was released in 1992, it was a very different and fresh sounding release. At it´s core it is an industrial tinged deathgrind album, but Burton C. Bell´s use of both clean vocals and growls was one of the first examples of that vocal approach and a bit of a revolution at the time. It´s of course been copied and used by many artists since then, but it can never be underestimated how much "Soul of a New Machine (1992)" meant for the use of clean vocals in extreme metal. The fact that Bell´s voice isn´t particularly strong and his ability to hit clean notes is a bit shaky, are only minor issues, because he understands how to work with what he has got, and seldom takes his mouth too full in terms of leaving his limited range.

On "Demanufacture", Fear Factory have opted to use clean vocals even more than they did on the debut album, and the growling vocals from the debut have also been replaced by a more raw yet still brutal shouting singing style. So this is not really death metal nor grindcore oriented music anymore, but instead the industrial and groove metal influences are in focus, as well as an almost mechanical rhythmic assualt. Razor sharp guitar riffs, inhumanly fast machine like drumming (recorded using click-track and triggers on the drums), and loads of atmosphere enhancing synths and electronics. "Demanufacture" is a sci-fi concept release telling the story of the life and suffering of a protagonist man in a future AI controlled society. A concept story strongly influenced by "The Terminator" movie universe (some tracks feature samples from the movies).

"Demanufacture" features 10 originals and a cover of "Dog Day Sunrise" by UK industrial rock band Head of David. The latter is placed at the center of the album, and with its atmospheric industrial rock sound is a melodic breather oasis in the midst of hard edged riffs, powerful precision drumming, a wall of futuristic synths/electronics and aggressive shouting vocals. The 9:43 minutes long closing track "A Therapy for Pain" is also slower and more atmospheric in nature, but the remaining tracks on the album are heavy, hard edged, and energetic industrial/groove metal tracks. It´s hard not to mention "Replica" as a standout track on the album, as it´s one of the most catchy tracks in the band´s discography, and the video for that track helped spread the band´s music to a wider audience. While it´s certainly a highlight of the album, it´s not necessarily the most interesting track on this release and I´d mention tracks like the opening trio of the title track, "Zero Zignal" and "Self Bias Resistor" before mentioning "Replica".

To my ears "Demanufacture" is frontloaded with the most standout tracks and tracks like "Flashpoint", "H-K (Hunter-Killer)", and "Pisschrist", do not quite reach the brilliance of the tracks featured on the first part of the album. "New Breed" can be added to that catagory of tracks too, but when that is said the quality is still high on those tracks...just not as high as on the best material on the album. The album features a clear, detailed, and powerful sound production, which perfectly suits the futuristic sci-fi theme of the music and upon conclusion "Demanufacture" is a high quality release and arguably a groundbreaking one too. A 4 - 4.5 (85%) star rating is deserved.