D.M's Top 11 Albums of 2021

May we please start with talking about how happy I am about this list?  Legitimate difficult decisions had to be made in order to compose the list you’ll read below, and make no mistake, that’s a wonderful thing.  Not since 2014 have I been so privileged as to have to agonize who’s going to make the final, very finite, cut.  

To add on to the lengthy and probably overly analytical conversation that Chris and I had, I think part of what’s happening here is that maybe, hopefully, fingers crossed, the baseline of music is improving.  Does that necessarily mean a new wave, a burgeoning fad that will sweep the music-imbibing public and usher us into a blessed era of radio-conquering prosperity?  Nah, probably not.

But don’t lost hope!  Part of what really sets this list, and the choices it forced me to make, apart from some of its predecessors is that a number of bands, many listed here in the embellished Honorable Mention section, fell into two groups – they either wrote amazing singles, but couldn’t maintain that momentum over a full album, or wrote a great, memorable record, but not so different from their previous accomplishments.  Originality, or in a baser sense, novelty, can break ties here.  So, there’s good news all around; there were a lot of worthy records that are still worth the investment of your time even if they didn’t crack this list, and also that this list must contain, as the kids say, some real bangers.  Shoot, I'm even giving away the elusive EP of the Year award, which I don't get to do every year.

Brushing all that aside, here’s part of the litmus test for me with how highly I personally consider the list below – when my coworkers at the office, who are dimly aware that I might be a person of varied interests when separated from the confines of my career, asked me who my top artists where this year, I could rattle off all eleven of these records without a second thought.  I haven’t been able to do that in literal years.

Before we begin, a recap of the rules:
-All qualifying albums must be original studio material – no live albums, no compilations, no re-releases, no covers albums.
-There are eleven albums here, because, of course, it goes to 11.
-Honorable Mention would normally just be one album, but I’m so pleased with 2021 as a musical year (and only as a musical year,) that I’ve decided to reward a number of albums.

Without further ado, here we go:

Honorable Mention (in alphabetical order) -

The Browning – END OF EXISTENCE
Charred – PRAYERS OF MALEDICTION
Employed To Serve – CONQUERING
Fear of Domination – VI: REVELATION
John 5 & The Creatures – SINNER
K.A.A.N – KAIZEN
Phantom Elite – TITANIUM
Powerwolf – CALL OF THE WILD
Steel bearing Hand – SLAY IN HELL

EP Of The Year – The Hawkins - AFTERMATH

Not going to go into a ton of detail here for an EP, but man, why isn't there more of this?  I mean, I get it, leave them wanting more, but there's barely enough here to know I'm thirsty for this!  Infectious and groovy and melodic and perfectly paced.  A lot to like.

11 – Andrew W.K – GOD IS PARTYING

I have been doing a year-end best of list every year since I dared call myself a music journalist, which was all the way back in 2008.  To that point, Andrew W.K's iconic "I Get Wet" had been released six years prior, and his career was already considered long past toast.  Now, nearly twenty years after the revelation that you truly could write a record where every song was about partying, we get another worthy landmark in the pantheon of Andrew W.K...and it's about as far from a party album as you can imagine.  Moody, temperamental and introspective, Andrew W.K wanted to show us all that he could execute a serious record while performing all the instruments himself, and he did just that, with great aplomb.  It is true that this is a singles record - not every song here is a home run.  But the moments that are elevated to greatness are sublime in their orchestration.

10 – We Butter The Bread With Butter – DAS ALBUM

I liked this album a lot the first time I heard it.  To the point where I would be listening to it in idle moments at work, and coworkers were starting to notice (generally followed by either a request to know what that awful racket was, an ask to turn it off, or some combination of the two.  Philistines.)  Then, suddenly it was lost to me.  And now, in reviewing everything I listened to this year, it finds itself back in the fold, earning top honors.  I won’t lie, it’s not the easiest listen – there’s a density of sound here that rivals anybody on the market, to the point where the album can be physically exhausting to listen to if you’re not prepared for it.  The deep bass tones and cavernous percussion are relentless and insistent, but if you’re willing to distill the music a little, there’s a lot of rhythmic sensibility contained in here, and once you get a taste for that, the album unfolds.

 

9 – Beartooth – BELOW

Let’s not bury the lede – the opening riff of “Devastation” is the best pure adrenaline guitar riff written this year.  And that’s no idle boast or one-off, because “Below” is end-to-end positively turgid with great riffs.  Real down and dirty metal purists are going to balk at the dramatic, melodic, singalong choruses that borrow from less authoritarian heavy genres, but don’t be intimidated by their ignorant condescension.  Beartooth can hammer with the best of them, and excels in writing songs that can change gears but still stay coherent within the musical narrative.  I feel like if I say “Below” is a rich man’s Avenged Sevenfold album, that both obfuscates some of the album’s genius and belittles the idiomatic accomplishments of both bands (because “City of Evil” is awesome,) but for some reason I can’t get that phrase out of my head.

 

8 – 6:33 – FEARY TALES FOR STRANGE LULLABIES: THE DOME

France, as a country, has for centuries been considered the beating heart of European art and culture (with apologies to Italy and specifically the city of Florence,) so refined and so scrutinizing in its taste that what the French culture deems worthy of merit must truly be beyond reproach.  So it logically follows that only a French experimental band could get away with writing a devilishly catchy song called “Holy Golden Boner.”  6:33 returned for the first time in six years with an album that made up for lost time by putting more words in the title (bonus points for a cool album cover,) and also stands as a stark improvement over the charming but flawed “Deadly Scenes.”  Regardless, at its best moments, 6:33’s music always sounds like a collection of demented, impish showtunes, and “Feary Tales” provides a whirlwind trip of exactly that over its wayward one-hour runtime.  Close your eyes and you can almost see the choreography.

 

7 - Vaelmyst – SECRYPTS OF THE EGOCHASM

As Chris and I have discussed at some length on this site over the years, there are several splinter genres of metal that have been all but played out – there’s little to no more room for experiment, expansion or idiomatic adjustments.  We normally make this argument with specific regard to power metal, but if we’re being honest in our heart of hearts, death metal is also in many ways a dry well.  And yet, Vaelmyst found a way to take all the desiccated mores of an overplayed idiom and revive them in such as a way as to be interesting and novel and dare I say, catchy?  The concept of catchy death metal often seems like a contradiction in terms at best and anathema to a possessive fanbase at worst, but the fact that I caught myself humming some of Vaelmyst’s better riffs during quiet moments at work speaks to the power that this band has unlocked.  And that was after having listened to the record just once.  I found myself going back to this album over and over throughout the months subsequent to its release, whenever I needed that particular fix for death metal done right.

 

6 - Erdling – HELHEIM

Erdling and I have danced around for a few years ago, but we’ve never been able to connect in any meaningful way.  Their album from last year, “Yggdrasil,” is as close as we’ve come to me giving them real accolades….until now.  For this, their fifth full-length album, Erdling locked in on the magic formula and found just the right combination of melody and groove and synth-industrial might to make “Helheim” stand out not only from their own catalogue, but from the effort of a lot of worthy contemporaries this year.  By the way, singles be damned, “Vogelfrei” is the best offering on this record.  NDH has spread out from beyond it’s original borders by a wide margin, but Erdling is proving that the home country still brews some of the best.

 

5 - CueStack – DIAGNOSIS: HUMAN

This was a latecomer to the list, and I admit that there may be some projection here on my part – “Diagnosis: Human” reminds me in many ways of the pomp and circumstance and hook-y energy of Peter Tägtgren’s excellent side project PAIN, and my fandom of that band is such that I might be pleased just to hear something that reminds me of that in the first place.  That’s not to say that CueStack can’t stand on their own, far from it – they exist at the burgeoning crossroads of electronic music and metal, and this debut full length shows the promise of a full synthesis of the two genres, ranging from the typically aggressive to the impressively muted.  In what typically can be a caustic mix of overwhelming sounds, CueStack found a way to weave some nuance into presentation, so the ceiling is high.

 

4 - Fear Factory – AGGRESSION CONTINUUM

I’m grinding my teeth a little that I have this album this high, but game has to recognize game (the implication here is that I also have game, when most contemporary evidence points to the contrary.)  As I said at the time of release, I didn’t want to like this album, since it was released on the heels of the most serious acrimony of a band who has spent much of their career soaking in acrimony.  Some of the members may be possessed of some…difficult….character traits.  Nevertheless, this is the best Fear Factory record since “Archetype,” and it’s not especially close.  Maybe even since “Obsolete.”  All of the proper violence of the band’s, well, archetype, is represented here in full, but couched within that cacophony is the proportionate mixture of riff and groove that has always made FF stand out from their contemporaries.  This is a really great effort, regardless of circumstances.

 

3 - Bokassa – MOLOTOV ROCKTAIL

In cooking, there is often equal reverence for the competing skills of ornate, detailed and time-intensive preparation, and the ability to do the simple with a level of practiced magnificence.  Bokassa’s album from 2021, “Molotov Rocktail,” fell squarely into that second camp.  Mixing some tenets of stoner rock, gutter punk and straightforward metal, the band assembled a roaring diesel engine of edgy rock, blending all the complementary elements into the blast furnace at its heart.  The album also possesses a chef’s kiss blend of sarcastic fun, gritty realism and implied menace to make for a listen that’s easy and accessible, but never boring.  The entire proceeding is punctuated with chant-worthy punk sing-along choruses that help bind the hooks and melodies into easily hummable touchstones.  In the modern era of music, it’s hard to impress solely by doing the simple things better than anyone else, but that’s what Bokassa has done here, and they should be celebrated for it.

2 - Dead Poet Society - -!-

What’s happening to me?  There was a time in my life when I would have bypassed this album without a second thought.  Maybe I’m becoming more open-minded, or, as I prefer to think, perhaps the world has finally come around to see music my way (unlikely.)  If I said to you ‘Breaking Benjamin on steroids,’ that’s an oversimplification of what’s really happening here, but it lends some idea of the contents of “-!-“. The attraction to Dead Poet Society’s album comes from the deep juxtaposition of earnest, clean vocals and impossibly throaty rhythm.  It’s an insistent, deep sound that hasn’t really been heard since the microcosm of Soundgarden’s “4^th of July,” and Dead Poet Society artfully stretched that out into an entire record.  The record doesn’t utilize a lot of virtuosity, but as rare as it is to say, that kind of styling is unnecessary here and would have actually been a mistake.  “-!-“ is all about fury and emotion and the undulating earth beneath our unsteady feet.

 

1 - Cave of Swimmers – AURORA

It doesn’t seem possible that the best album of the year could be produced by a mere two musicians, but here we are.  While “Aurora” is impressive in its depth and intricacy and layers, the album also impresses upon the attention from the first strains.  Riding that line between instantly catchy and philosophically interesting is perhaps the most difficult of all feats in music, especially in metal, where one is almost invariably sacrificed for the good of the other.  And that’s before we reconcile with the idea that the lyrics and themes from this album range from the relatable, to the typically prog, to the utterly ridiculous.  Yet every moment is packed with some distinct hook, some well-orchestrated edge, some synthesis of percussion and guitar that rings true in the ear in the listener.  “Aurora” is as bold a statement of arrival as we’ve had in recent years, and Cave of Swimmers is not to be missed.

 

 

Album Review: Fear Factory - "Aggression Continuum"

 

We’re going to begin today’s discussion of the new Fear Factory album “Aggression Continuum” by first invoking the time-honored tenets of ‘Real Talk’ and its patron saint, R. Kelly.

<Real Talk> Not only was I fully prepared to dislike this album, but I am man enough to admit that I rather wanted to.  I hold dear the classic albums of Fear Factory’s heady heyday; “Obsolete” has some of the best crowd anthems ever composed and “Demanufacture” is a timeless classic, a pinnacle achievement of the genre, nigh perfect from beginning to end.  There are other moments scattered in small gatherings throughout the band’s tenure, up to and including the unforgivably infectious bassline of “Default Judgement,” a deep album cut from “Archetype” that gets caught in my head on random occasions to this very day.

All of this is balanced against the acrimony that has plagued the band since roughly the turn of the millennium, so twisted and dramatic that it would make suitable fodder for a compelling telenovela.  We won’t go into the gory details here; they can be read at length with a simple query of a search engine – but we will attempt to tidily sum it up by suggesting that once and future guitarist Dino Cazares appears to be possessed of some…irredeemable character flaws.

It is these same flaws that drove me to be predisposed against “Aggression Continuum,” not out of a particular loyalty to erstwhile vocalist Burton C. Bell, but out of the respected memory of what had, classically, been Fear Factory.  Much as when Tony Iommi continued calling his band Black Sabbath despite his being the only original member, or when Tom Araya and Kerry King insisted on being called Slayer despite the absence of Jeff Hanneman and Dave Lombardo, to call this band Fear Factory, with only Dino remaining, seems disingenuous. </Real Talk>

….

Damn it.  “Aggression Continuum” is good.  Really good.  Easily the band’s best record since “Archetype” (which did not feature Dino,) and aspires even to the lofty strata of a classic like “Obsolete.”

Dino, for whatever faults he may possess as a personality, is a truly talented guitarist and instinctive riff-crafter.  His ability to pull burnished steel out of the molten furnace of industrial metal has always been what separated Fear Factory from so many of their contemporaries, even luminaries like Ministry.  Fear Factory’s riffs have perpetually lent just enough of a kernel of accessibility to the proceedings that it prevented the musical narrative from getting lost in the noise of the accompanying smashing and banging.  So it is the case here.

Don’t be mistaken, there’s still plenty smashing and banging.  The title track is one of any number of interchangeable Fear Factory songs that could have fit on any album between “Transgression” and now.  For all their laudable talent, the band does have a penchant for penning a handful of songs on each effort that are simply tasteless because they hold no particular shape; they are just five minute recitals of blast beats and screaming.  C’est la vie.

And yet, “Aggression Continuum” shines because much as in their best work, Fear Factory uses well-paced choruses and melodic, electronic overtones to lift their songwriting to a different plane.  Such is the case with the album’s excellent opener “Recode,” which sets the stage with a bite-sized riff that is outpaced by the hypersonic electronic sample (at their best, Fear Factory’s electronics have always sounded like an adrenaline-junkie DJ is having a conniption fit, and here it is just so,) and a melodic bridge that helps give the song depth and versatility.

Let’s skip ahead to “Manufactured Hope.”  There are bright moments in the intervening tracks, but this is where “Aggression Continuum” really comes alive.  It is rare that a band can throw everything in their arsenal at the wall and make a real, authentic song of it, but that’s what happens here.  The song blisters by at warp speed, transitioning at a blink between opening, verse, bridge, chorus, interlude, over and over again, in less time than it takes the reader to ingest this sentence.  At times harsh, brittle, hopeful, angry and a hundred other descriptors, the song is the album’s best offering, even if it is to some degree physically exhausting to listen to.  On an enjoyable album brimming with good moments, “Manufactured Hope” is the single ‘WOW.’

And now the flood gates are open.  The album never releases the attention of the listener again, moving seamlessly into the rhythmically hammering riff of “Cognitive Dissonance,” which features as good a mosh pit-riling breakdown as Dino has written in several album cycles, but also comes equipped with a melodic chorus by Bell that resets the song both sonically and emotionally.

This flows into the excellently executed and rock-infused “Monolith,” which then sets the table for the galloping “End of Line,” which closes the album with Fear Factory’s typical dramatic and borderline orchestral flourish.

On some level, “Aggression Continuum” is just another Fear Factory record about dystopian strife and fending off some horrid, automaton-heavy technocracy.  As the Ramones said, second verse, same as the first.  But that’s what makes it great!  This is an aural homecoming of sorts for the band, as what’s old is new again, and tricks we haven’t seen them employ in more than fifteen years are heartily embraced and folded into something new.  The album is a must for all FF fans, and a great entry point for the curious.  It stands as a resurrection (reference intended,) of the halcyon days of a great group.  The bittersweet part is that this is a de facto swan song, as the band, as constructed on this album, will likely never produce content again.  Fear Factory, as an entity, will simply become an epithet for Dino Cazares.  There’s no great injustice in that – he did it to himself – but we may well be worse off for it.

Concert Review - The Demanufacture Tour - Fear Factory & Soilwork

Coming into the evening, it was plainly clear that the Demanufacture Tour was Fear Factory’s night.  That’s why people were there, that’s who the paying customers wanted to see.  There was to be a celebration of one of the great, truly shaping albums in metal’s history, and all other concerns were secondary.

And yet, as Soilwork took the stage on a sold out night deep in the heart of Manhattan and faced up to a waving sea of industrial-hungry appetites, the winds shifted.  The Swedish metal band, veteran of a thousand shows and no stranger to the headline stage, were not inclined to acquiesce the evening quietly.  Led by the battle-tested confidence of vocalist Bjorn Strid and buoyed by the infectious enthusiasm of guitarist Sylvain Coudret and bassist Markus Wilbom, the band smashed forcefully through some of their best work.

Led by the title single of their new album, the band launched into one crowd favorite after another, using their limited time to blast a firehose worth of power-driven heavy metal into the ear canal of every participant.  Soilwork continued their celebration of the ten (now eleven) year anniversary of “Stabbing the Drama,” by again drawing heavily on that record, beginning with the measured march of “Nerve.”

Where the set really took off is in the middle, beginning with a tight but appropriately heavy “The Crestfallen,” forever a people pleaser with its immediate blast of rhythmic power, a surefire guarantee when the bodies in the mosh pit need proper motivation.  This continued, band members slamming along with the energetic crowd, through “Follow the Hollow” and culminated with one of Soilwork’s many masterpieces, “The Living Infinite I.”  Suddenly, the temperature in the venue had increased as bodies slammed wholly into one another, arms flailed and voices raised in riotous celebration.  Soilwork may not be the headline of this tour, but their performance is both professional and engaging, some of their best work in years.

Still, the biggest reception of the evening was reserved for the reason we all had gathered – Fear Factory promised to play their seminal album “Demanufacture” in its entirety.

Worth mentioning – the first and only real non-sequitur of the evening was seeing Fear Factory introduced in person by Dennis Haskins, most commonly recognized as Mr. Belding from “Saved By the Bell.”  Evidently, he is a friend of Fear Factory and longtime fan.  Turns out, he’s also familiar with profanity and how to use it.  Moving on.

Fear Factory fans for years have come to anticipate “Demanufacture” having a certain presence in a live setting.  “Replica” is a prerequisite of any Fear Factory performance.  This show would be different – the album would not just have a presence, it would BE the presence.   While “Obsolete” sold more copies, it is this cardinal effort from the band’s early days that has always captured the imagination of the fans and critics alike.  Normally, the ‘play a full album’ concert gimmick can be a dicey scenario, as it’s often fair to say that the crowd would rather see pieces of the entire catalogue when balanced against a single effort.  “Demanufacture,” by contrast has many deep cuts on it that have been secret favorites of fans, but rarely see the light of day.    Eleven songs over fifty-five minutes.  The stage was set.  The introductions were made.

Emerging in a stark blue light, Burton C Bell, Dino Cazares and company wasted no time, churning out the title track before the audience was done cheering with anticipation.  The pulse of the concert was set – this was to be no mere recitation of an album.  This was a celebration breathing fiery life into a classic.  Each band member, even those who weren’t present when the album was originally recorded, threw their whole being into the experience, selling each measure with intent and aplomb.

The classics of “Demanufacture” are known commodities, so it was truly the album cuts that were revered most by the fans.  “Zero Signal” was a thunderous blast of industrial impatience, each measure crisp, each rifled riff timed perfectly.  Fans near and far could be heard exclaiming to their friends “When will we ever see this song again?” as Fear Factory pounded out the infectious snare of “New Breed,” and later the sinister menace of an excellent “H-K (Hunter-Killer).”

And then it happened.  “Body Hammer.”  One of the great industrial riffs of all time, taken off the shelf and given back to the masses, a series of punctuated industrial explosions that caused smiles on some, furious head-banging by others, and both for many.  The only disappointment in hearing this and the other cuts was the crushing realization that some of these may be once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

There was a break in the action following the conclusion of the album, but the night wasn’t nearly over.  There was a second, albeit understandably shorter, set to get to.

As ever, the crowd reached deep for the first song in the second set, “Shock,” complete with arms pumping, bodies flying and pulses racing.  “Shock” has become of the one of the great live songs of all time, fully indoctrinated in the hall of fame along with “Hallowed Be Thy Name” and “For Those About to Rock.”  It is the only song I can recall seeing that each time it is played, the most pit looks like staged mosh pit, fit for the big screen.  Naturally, with no interest in allowing the momentum to recede, Bell simply asked “Can you feel it?” before the timeless crunch of “Edgecrusher” started punching fans in the mouth.

There was more after.  “Archetype” made an appearance, “Dielectric” and a handful of other new songs were played, but the crowd, roused into a ninety minute frenzy and stuffed into an overheated sold-out venue, was beginning to tire.  The band played on, never showing any sign of exhaustion, singularly interested in delivering the best live experience.

There was one more moment of kinesis, as the crowd chanted along with the final song of the evening, “Maryr.” It was a celebration not just of the band and of a great show, but of the experience we all realized we had just had together.  Cheers went up.  Horns went up.  Hands were clapped.  Tired thanks, both directed at and from the stage, were said.  We walked out into a cold Manhattan night, appreciative.

Turning the Gears, Stoking the Machinery - A Conversation With Fear Factory

 Innumerable trials, tribulations and years in the game have proven unable to stop the industrial juggernaut of Fear Factory.  Still going strong after more than twenty-five years, the band has been forged and tempered several times over.  At the tip of the spear is vocalist Burton C. Bell, as iconic a voice in industrial as there has ever been.  He took some time out to answer some of our questions - 

D.M: Fear Factory is going out on the road, continuing the 20th anniversary “Demanufacture” tour.  That album stands as Fear Factory’s coming out party, what makes that album such a classic in your mind?

BURTON C. BELL: When that album came out in 1995, we were writing it in late ’93-’94, sonically it just stood out from all the bands that were popular at the time, especially on Roadrunner [Records].  It was a hybrid of different thoughts and genre elements, especially industrial and metal.  Some forms of hardcore, thrash, whatever.  It was mostly industrial metal.  Sonically, it stood out [because] it wasn’t muddy, it was crisp, it was clean, it was highly aggressive between the style to the beats to the vocals.  It was something that was different at the time, and it touched upon the energy that I believe most people were feeling at the time in Los Angeles, where we wrote the album, where we’re from, we captured that angst in that sound and in that record.

D.M: As that album came out, it was released in the power vacuum following the demise of grunge.  Fear Factory lived through this one scene, and then in the aftermath of all that, it turned out people wanted to listen to Limp Bizkit for a while.  Did you ever feel like ‘isn’t it our turn?’

BCB: Not to self-aggrandize or anything like that, it’s an album that influenced a lot of bands, but unfortunately the nature of the album was too aggressive, too in-your-face, too powerful for what people could take at that time.  That’s all I can think.  It was more than people could get a grasp of.  Limp Bizkit had their moment, they catered to a certain audience, and our audience was not that audience.  Sure, there were some gaps that were filled between the two genres, but on the whole, not many people crossed over.

D.M: Not that Fear Factory will ever be confused as an electronic band, but as electronic music rises in popularity worldwide, do you feel like that gives you a broader audience?  Are people more accepting of your sound now?

BCB: I don’t know.  It’s still not pure electronic, you know?  And people who love electronic music are almost purists.  There are some people that will cross over and appreciate that this is that and metal.  We really have a niche in the industrial area, hardcore industrial fans understand what we do, they appreciate it and come over and check it out.  It’s definitely full-on, and other people appreciate the industrial aspect of it.

D.M: You’re sort of promoting two albums at the same time right now, as you’re celebrating “Demanufacture” and at the same time still promoting “Genexus.”  How do you strike that balance?

BCB: For me, “Demanufacture” and “Genexus” can stand as albums together really well, they complement each other really well.  They have a similar feel, “Genexus” has a similar feel without repeating the things we did on “Demanufacture.”  It’s like an extension of that album, “Demanufacture” in our young, angst-ridden days, and here’s our album in our mature angst-ridden days [laughs].  I think the songs, they all fit well together.  When we play the full album and mix in the tracks from “Genexus,” there will be a sense of unity.  Makes perfect sense.

D.M: Totally putting you on the spot, which album do you prefer?

BCB: Right now, I prefer “Genexus.”  That’s the album I’m promoting.  Sure, “Demanufacture” is the record that put Fear Factory on the map and made people appreciate it, but been there, done that.  People love nostalgia.  “Genexus” is not nostalgia, it’s the new thing, it’s our new album and for me, I want to push “Genexus.”

D.M: Is “Genexus” your favorite of the album’s you’ve done so far?

BCB: No, it’s like…a strange analogy, but deciding who’s your favorite child.  Each album represents a different chapter in our lives, my life.  I appreciate and look fondly upon each album as its own entity.  So I love each one for different reasons.

D.M: Pivoting to “Genexus,” you mentioned that it’s new but not totally new, what’s changed for this album?

BCB: I think the approach, the way we went into producing it.  We definitely went in beforehand, and we researched our old albums, “Demanufacture,” “Obsolete,” “Digimortal,” and researching what were the best songs on those albums, how those songs were received live, how they performed live and physically used those ideas in how can we write and formulate those type of writing skills into this album.  We wanted to focus on groove, we wanted to focus on melody and for the first time we brought in an outsider, Drew Fulk, to come in and help produce vocal ideas.  I keep coming up with the same ideas, it’s my voice, and I have the same melodies.  But I had someone come in to give a little bit of flavor, and that’s what we did.

D.M: Speaking of your vocals, you’re largely credited as one of the first ‘mainstream’ vocalists who mixed your harsh vocals and clean vocals.  In your early days, what made you decide to take that role?

BCB: I’m a fan of all types of music, mostly.  Industrial, alternative, I was a big fan of grunge.  When I started singing, I was trying to emulate my favorite vocalists, from Justin Broadrick to Jaz Coleman to Andrew Eldritch, to [David] Bowie to Wayne Hussey to Tad [Doyle] to Kurt Cobain to Chris Cornell, the list goes on.  I just tried to emulate my favorite vocalists, like Michael Gira for instance, and by doing that I created my own voice by trying to emulate others.  And the clean vocal things, I started doing it just because in rehearsal one day I was playing around with this harmonic.  I use my voice as an instrument.  I put it through delay and chorus.  I was adjusting the delay and just doing this monotone Gregorian chant kind of thing through this one song, and Dino [Cazares] is like ‘what the fuck are you doing?’  I said I’ll stop, and he said ‘no, no, that’s great, keep doing it!  You’re on to something!’ [laughs]  We worked with it.  It happened by accident, like penicillin!

D.M: Rhys Fulber has been the man behind the curtain for Fear Factory for years – what’s he actually like, and what does he mean to Fear Factory?

BCB: Rhys is a really good guy.  He’s basically been working with us since “Fear is the Mindkiller,” we brought him in to help with the electronics sections.  He likes metal, so he really understands what we want to achieve with our music.  When he came in, he didn’t want to be in the band, just wanted to help produce that part of it in the production.  He’s got great ideas for music, he’s a highly talented musician and producer.  He’s been working with Dino and myself for so long that he understands the personalities, what we’re capable of and what we can do, so he really works well with us, helping us decide what sounds best and what Fear Factory needs without over-producing.

D.M: To that end, Fear Factory has outlasted a lot of its contemporaries in industrial music.  Plenty of bands have come and gone, yet you guys remain.  What makes Fear Factory so stable in that genre?

BCB: That’s a good question, I think about that often.  I think it’s the fact that we continue to strive forward in music and I think the fact that this is our life, how we chose to survive, our career path, which followed our passion.  And it’s still our passion.  We constantly move forward to do what we love to do, which is continue writing music, continue touring.

D.M: Speaking of touring, each time I’ve been privileged enough to see Fear Factory perform over the past dozen or so years, no matter what album it is, no matter what tour it is, the set always starts with “Shock.”  What is it about that song?

BCB: Man, it’s a good opener.  When you’ve been playing in a band for twenty years plus, you learn what works, you learn what’s the best live song.  And you have a set playlist that goes over well live, and “Shock” is just one of those great openers.  It’s the first hit off our biggest album, “Obsolete,” so pretty much everyone knows that.  It’s a good ‘bam!’  Nice explosion to start off with.

D.M: Much of Fear Factory’s material deals with the relationship between man and machine.  What turned you on to that?  Are you a big William Gibson or Neal Stephenson fan?  Were there authors or other media you encountered that took you down that road?

BCB: Once we came up with the concept of Fear Factory, it all started to develop.  The philosophy started to develop from there forward.  For me, I’ve always been a science-fiction fan.  I’ve also been fascinated with the idea of an apocalypse, the idea of technology taking over.  I’ve been fascinated with it since I was a kid, with “Robocop,” “Terminator,” “Blade Runner,” even cheesy movies from the seventies.  That philosophy of what’s going to happen.  Also, as a writer, my personal feelings are very anti-establishment.  To me, in the beginning, fighting the machine was fighting the established governing systems that try to control people.  To turn that metaphor into a physical machine really made for a story that was beyond punk rock, beyond hard core, put into a venue where I could explore my creative passions of what science fiction was and push my writing further.  That’s where it started.  We’d use samples from various movies, not just dialogue samples but various sounds, we’d lift them and take them.  We knew we’d never get caught because [laughs] we’re not a huge band like Soundgarden or Ministry or Rammstein.  We’re not gonna get caught.

D.M: So, as a writer, do you almost storyboard an album before you start to write the songs for it?

BCB: No, we don’t do that.  I storyboard the album after it’s written.  All the lyrics have a common theme, a common thread and once written, it’s like ‘give us the picture we’ve created.’  I create a story from that.

D.M: Fear Factory has been through a lot.  People have come and gone, the band itself has come and gone, record labels come and gone, litigations, all kinds of things.  To sum it all up, what the hell happened?  More importantly, is your band stronger for surviving it?

BCB: You know, once money comes into the equation it changes everything.  It’s a reality that all young bands will have to realize, that once you make your first dollar, it’s not for fun anymore, you can have fun, but the business takes over.  Also, people change, friendships come and go just like in real life – marriages come and go, it’s part of life.  A band is no different, it’s a relationship between three or four different people and you can get along [until] an extent that nothing is getting done, and that’s a problem.  Something has to change.  You have to continue moving forward.  There are some relationships, you can make a decision that this is what it is and we can keep working like this, or you can continue to move forward.  We struggled through it, we fight through it, and we put all that negative energy that’s happened; from litigation to people leaving to whatever, you put it into your passion and you make it fuel for your fire.  It’s cliché, but that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and nothing’s been able to stop us, we continue to go forward and continue writing music.  It’s survival.

D.M: How confident are you in the future of Fear Factory right now?  Are you comfortable with this lineup, does it feel like things are solid?

BCB: I feel like it’s a good lineup.  It’s a small lineup, we’re a tight band.  Mike [Heller] is an incredible drummer, really good friend, good kid.  Kid, he’s like thirty-three [laughs].  Tony [Campos] is a great bass player, great friend.  Dino and I have been together for twenty-five, coming up on twenty-six years now.  For me, I feel it’s a really strong lineup, and I feel good about it.

D.M: Tying up a few loose ends – who’s the musician that’s on your collaboration bucket list?

BCB: It’s gonna be weird, but Willie Nelson.

D.M: Perfect!  He’d do it, too.

BCB: I know he would!  That’s what makes it awesome.  I wrote a song that I think he’d be perfect for, to play it his way.  Somehow I need to get that to him.

D.M: What makes him the choice?

BCB: I’m from Texas, grew up with Willie Nelson.  I’m a huge fan.  The song I’m thinking of, it’s just perfect for him.

D.M: Your other band, Ascension of the Watchers – is that done, or will we see more from them?

BCB: Yes, you will!  Thanks for asking about that.  We’re currently writing new songs, we have new material we’re recording and writing at the same time and I’m getting it all together, trying to record it and make it sound decent.  You’ll definitely see some more of that, we’ve got like, ten new songs.

D.M: We see rock and metal stars retire all the time, and the unretired.  Years ago, you worked with Geezer Butler, you know the man, been in the same room with him, made music with him.  Based on your insight, is this tour really the end of Black Sabbath?

BCB: Well, I mean, for touring and albums, yeah.  Not trying to be the harbinger of ill will or bad news, but the reality of Tony Iommi’s sickness is a big factor, I believe.  And Tony Iommi, he’s as much Black Sabbath as Geezer Butler of Ozzy Osbourne or Bill Ward, if not more.  I would be sad, but the reality is that they’ve been around since the sixties.

D.M: Parting shots?

BCB: I still have a few copies of the graphic novel “The Industrialist” left, I will be selling them on the road, but if you can’t make it to the show, you can pick it up online!

For more on Fear Factory and their upcoming tour, check them out on their website.
For more on Burton C. Bell, check him out on his website.

Concert Review: Coal Chamber, Fear Factory

The “Rivals” tour, in many ways, was a tour that shouldn’t have been.  The two headliners, Fear Factory and Coal Chamber, both had been through a lifetime of musical acrimony, an almost stage-worthy amount of triumphs and battles and reconciliation to rise again.  Nobody would have blamed either band if they had decided to call it a day years ago, but the furnace of metal’s molten heart churns with fervor, so each band has continued on the path.  Now, some twenty years after Fear Factory’s Dino Cazares first started peddling Coal Chamber’s demo tape, the two bands share the stage.

Fresh off the road from an extensive tour of Europe with Hatebreed, Jamey Jasta wasn’t content to sit around and wait for another opportunity.  As he explained to the crowd, when you get the call from Dez Fafara asking to go on the road and play in support of this particular twin bill, you have no choice but to accept.  With that in mind, Jasta pulled together his solo metal project of the same name and immediately turned around to hit the highway again, this time with thirty more minutes of heavily rhythmic, crowd-exciting material.  Jasta wasn’t content to stick just to their catalogue, even as the headbanging excitement of “Nothing They Say” washed over the crowd at large and the mosh pit in particular.  Jasta reached back into the catalogue of music they love, pulling out a fiery cover of Running Wild’s “Soldiers of Hell,” to the delight of the older fans in attendance.  Jasta the man, over and above the other band members onstage, was a smiling dynamo, happy to be anywhere playing music where people were gathered to hear it.  With a flourish and a promise of more Hatebreed to come, the set was over, leaving the crowd primed for the industrial evening of metal to come.

Fear Factory’s set could have gone a lot of different ways.  With their new album “Genexus” less than a week old, one might have expected that the band would lean heavily on new material for their set.  To accompany this, it would have fallen right in line for FF to concentrate their efforts on songs that have been written since the re-unification with Cazares.

Ever the crowd pleaser, Fear Factory instead decided to start as they always start – with “Shock,” a song from 1998, arguably one of the greatest crowd inciters ever, as the bass drops and a whole new generation of moshers take to slamming into one another.  Not inclined to let the momentum subside, “Shock” naturally had to transition into “Edgecrusher,” cascading over the frenzied masses in a tidal wave of beat-driven industrial.  The past would continue to hold court throughout the set, as “Powershifter” gave way to “What Will Become” and “Damaged,” two memorable cuts from the often forgotten and overlooked “Digimortal.”

Naturally, the new songs, when the band displayed them, stood up just as well as the old, the pounding of “Soul Hacker” and the charged current of “Dialectric” exciting the newer fans who were just coming to the band for the first time.

Yet the show to this point felt incomplete.  There was a giant gap in the programming schedule that felt conspicuously empty.  2015 marks the 20th anniversary of Fear Factory’s greatest song writing triumph, “Demanufacture.”  Bell and company made the crowd wait patiently until the very end, smiling from ear to ear while ripping into the title track of that seminal album, and closing the show, as they always do, with a stunningly powerful “Replica.”

Which brought the proceedings lastly to Coal Chamber.  There was palpable anticipation surrounding the band’s set swirling in eddies around the club, but very little sense of what the show would actually look like.  Thirteen years removed from their last album, Coal Chamber took the stage with more questions than answers floating above their heads.

Dez Fafara immediately dispelled some of the unworded queries by plunging himself headlong into the performance, channeling all the piss and vinegar that made his delivery so unique when the band debuted.  The gauntlet he had worn so long to cover his Coal Chamber tattoo during the DevilDriver tours had been summarily discarded, a silent pledge of his solidarity to whatever form this tour took.
Similar to the band on the stage before them, Coal Chamber focused their efforts on the songs that longtime fans wanted to see.  As seemed fitting, “Loco” opened the proceedings, establishing the crushing, beat-driven pace that would dictate the color and attitude of their set.  For all the long absence, the band surrounding Fafara seemed both relaxed and intent, striving to provide the paying customers with a show they’d be proud to say they witnessed.  “Big Truck” followed the opener, another punishing reminder of the days that were in the band’s halcyon era.

The new material from “Rivals” fared just as well in comparison to the old, with “I.O.U Nothing,” and “Another Nail in the Coffin” reflecting well against the dingy sheen of the pieces surrounding.  That was really a central theme of the entire set – that Coal Chamber may have left, but they remain the band upon their return, possessed of the same sensibilities and musical acumen as they utilized on their first run.

Now, does that mean that the new songs sounded just as good as timeless fan favorites like the steamroller or “I” or the infectious, singalong repetition of “Sway,” which capped off the evening?  If we’re being honest, probably not, but that’s not a fault of the band or the music – classics are so partly because they’ve had time to settle in, and those last two pieces were coupled with the catharsis of hearing them again for the first time in a while.

The one curious turn of the night was that Coal Chambers set blasted by in a brisk forty-five minutes or so, which was enough time to give the crowd what they wanted, but perhaps not quite enough to truly satiate long-dry thirst.  Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable effort, one that Dez punctuated by essentially telling the crowd that they were thrilled for the support, because there is currently no idea how, when or in what form Coal Chamber will continue, if at all.  With that last thank you, the lights came up, the house music started and the satisfied crowd made its way into a muggy summer night.

Album Review: Fear Factory - "Genexus"

After twenty-six years of life in various incarnations, Fear Factory might be the least likely survivor of the Los Angeles music scene.  Since the bands’ formation in 1989, generations of musicians have come and gone, from the lingering decay of Motley Crue to the candle burned at both ends that was Rage Against the Machine.  Through the death throes of hair metal, the excesses of 90s rock and the quagmire of hard- and grindcore, Fear Factory seems to be winning, or at least surviving, the battle of Los Angeles, utilizing a style that has rarely found a scene in one particular destination.  The industrial legends reappear in 2015 with their new album, “Genexus.”

Let’s get the smallest and most insignificant detail out of the way first.  “Genexus” feels like there’s more electronic instrumentation in the mix overall (though not in the percussion, more on that in a minute,) which lends the album an even greater industrial texture than the last couple of efforts.  The keyboards are particularly critical to “Regenerate” and the album’s surprisingly emotional closer “Expiration Date,” the latter of which is really the one to focus on.  It’s probably imagined, but one can listen to the last song and wonder if Fear Factory perhaps feels slightly more liberated in their use of electronic influences with the rise of EDM in popular music as a whole.  As stated, probably more imagined than real, but it does pique the curiosity.

As with most Fear Factory albums, the real star here is the drums and Mike Heller does not disappoint in his first studio appearance with the band.  It feels like there’s been more written about the band returning to live drums than there were letters to Santa Claus in “Miracle on 34th Street,” but that doesn’t mean the hype is unwarranted.  Particularly in light of the public flak taken for turning to machinery for the recording of “The Industrialist,” the decision to return to a live drummer was the correct, if perhaps obvious one.  Heller’s thundering lead-ins to the title track or “Protomech” signify all that Fear Factory has ever represented, recalling the best days of Raymond Herrera while still injecting a fresh face into the proceedings.  Heller’s snares in particular are tight and snap in the same manner as some of the jazz greats, with each percussive moment a distinctive piece of a roll, rather than one long river of sludge.

For all that though, the magic of any great Fear Factory album has always been in the riffs, though they’re not solely contained in the guitar work.  Fear Factory might still be the only band in existence where the drum lines are the hummable parts you remember most, thinking back specifically to singles like “Replica” or “Slave Labor.”  The secret to this concoction that so many bands miss when putting together albums built around percussive dominance is that not only should the double kick rhythms incorporate open space, but the guitars must line up in accordance, with the same number of beats.  It’s the hallmark of Fear Factory for over a quarter-century that when the drums stop, so does everything else, and then they will start in tandem again, with such impeccable timing that the listener can hardly recall one without the other.  This is what makes the opening of “Church of Execution” work so well once the main riff breaks – the harmony and melody can be carried by the keyboards, while Dino Cazares’ riff and Heller’s track mirror one another seamlessly.  That’s really the case for every song that’s discussed in this review, and it’s what separates Fear Factory from so many of their smash-bang-speed-rules-all-else brethren in this genre and several tangential sub-genres.

Lastly, the addition of Tony Campos on bass was an informed and intelligent decision.  Campos has long been a capable player and his career with Static-X lends him to this kind of staccato, beat-driven industrial metal.  He sounds right at home keeping pace through the electric hammering of “Anodized,” slamming out a fuzzy rumble in the middle of the mix that stands in compliment to the percussion and contrast to the thin electric line that floats above.  Bass has rarely dominated the mix in a Fear Factory song (the erratic heartbeat of “Default Judgement” a delicious exception,) but the presence of Campos asserts a confidence into the backbone of “Genexus” that helps keep the album on-rails and tight.

We haven’t talked much about Burton C. Bell, Fear Factory’s frontman who was listed waaay back in “Demanufacture” as the band’s “Dry Lung Vocal Martyr.”  Bell remains the songwriting engine and ideaman for the band, this time comprising an album that focuses on its face on the concept of The Singularity, but really asks questions about the nature of human individuality and the definition of self.  It’s slightly heady subject matter, but well within the always-technically minded wheelhouse of Fear Factory and handled with much better introspection and care than most similar artists can manage to give it.  As for Bell’s actual vocal performance, well, there’s not a ton to say.  Bell’s vocals have always been one aspect of the band that people love or hate and “Genexus” does nothing to change minds in either direction.

As if it needed to be said at this point, “Genexus” is no joke, and is pretty clearly Fear Factory’s best record since at least “Archetype.”  While the album cover barely hints at the band’s now commonplace back-to-back double F logo, “Genexus” might be the most ‘Fear Factory’ of any FF album this century.  Not to be missed for longtime fans and also a great starting point for new fans who then want to work backwards.