Search - Fear Factory :: Digimortal

Fear Factory's fourth album, Digimortal, finds the hirsute Los Angeles industrial-metal band happening on a theme that they've been alluding to throughout their existence. Digimortal is a concept album about the synthesis of man and machine, its 11 tracks serving up a mish-mash of screaming electronics and punishing low-end death-metal dynamics. Guitarist Dino Cazares and drummer Raymond Herrera served tenure in the none-more-metal terrorist troupe Brujeria shortly before the release of Digimortal, but straight-ahead metal antics have not dulled Fear Factory's silicon edge; the scattershot riffage of "Damaged" is undercut by furious, distorted synth-lines, and the hyper-tense "No One" offers up sirens straight from the Chemical Brothers' box of old-school rave machinery. While there's nothing quite as startling as the title track from 1999's Obsolete (which featured vocals from synth pioneer Gary Numan), the beatbox-based "Back the F**k Up," featuring Cypress Hill's B-Real, stands head and shoulders above the ham-fisted rap-rock fusion peddled by many of Fear Factory's peers. --Louis Pattison