FEAR FACTORY — Digimortal (review)

FEAR FACTORY — Digimortal album cover Album · 2001 · Industrial Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
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.
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