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.
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