Having been a fan of frontman Ethan McCarthy's project Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire for a while now, my anticipation for this release was sky high especially after the release of "Visceral" in 2011, which saw them incorporating elements of funeral doom into their usual brand of frenzied "funeral grind." Over the 16 and some odd minutes of it's runtime the band seamlessly jumps from a crawl to a full on assault, tied together by their unique riffs and note choices. Scorn is a natural continuation of that sound, yet retaining the same unyielding commitment to anti-consonance.

The first thing that caught my attention about this release is just how massive everything sounds. Bass and guitars are downtuned and loud, and both possess a rich fuzzy distortion that really serves to emphasize the low end and really rounds out their sound. Drums are punchy and full bodied and sit perfectly in the mix. Ethan's vocals have always been one of the major standout factors to his work for me and he's honestly never sounded more at home here, his caustic shrieks cutting fiercely through the dense atonal sludge of the riffs driving home the intensity of the work.

As mentioned before, Scorn is heavy. REALLY FUCKING HEAVY. Much of the album is spent somewhere between a drunken stagger and a punishing crawl which works quite well for them. Tracks begin and end with noise as would befit any grind act. The dissonance of their riffing when given some proper breathing room tends to yield an unsettling effect, which is often bolstered by the inclusion of feedback or fret noise in the more sparse passages. That's not to say the album is all set at that pace, in songs like the title track and Antietam will explode out of nowhere into a brief but furious crusty charge, adding to the urgency of it the music settling back down. The most impressive part of it all and the thing that will likely add to its staying power are the way they can carve impossibly catchy riffs with a clever ear for unconventional melody. The song Rags fades out with a haunting arpeggiated chord progression laid down over a bed of feedback. The 9 minute epic Antietam's middle section's got a nasty grooving hook that gradually reduces in tempo as if it's falling apart before breaking completely down into noise. The sum of all it's parts work well together and keep the album interesting throughout.

This is an excellent first effort for the band and I look forward to whatever the future holds for them.

Abyssal - Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius

Translation: For the Lord knows those who are his.
In 2012, it was safe to say that I was blown away by this new band and their debut album “Denouement”. Not even one full day into 2013 and we are delighted to hear that there is a new album seemingly out of the blue (much like the first – I can't find out much information on the band at all). “So soon?!” I swooned. The album is available on their bandcamp page, which does allow for you to put in a value of '0' to be able to download it. [Since I first wrote this, the minimum value has been upped to £2, which is still pretty good]. Which is good for me, and I'm sure many other people with very little money. Anywho, after getting over the initial thought that my favourite band from 2012 have released an album so soon in 2013 for me to get hooked on it for the whole year, I actually listened to it.

There are some subtle differences between this album and their debut. The production I think is not as good, or should I say, clear – the problem being that there are times when everything seems to just mesh together into what sounds like thousands of mechanical bees are trapped in a freight container. Maybe the wall of sound is what they were going for, but I'm sure there are riffs in there somewhere trying to be heard through the huge fuzzyness of the guitars. But it's also true that I need some better headphones. The drum work is fantastic and suits the atmosphere at all times whilst being nicely varied throughout. It's fair to say that the vocals are not a very important part of the Abyssal sound – they're quite deep gutterals and are quite low in the mix too. They do fit the style though, I think any more importance placed on the vocals would detract from the sound slightly. As for the lyrics, I'm not usually one to look at lyrics, but the themes here appropriately dystopic and oppressive and beautiful in their own way.
“Thriving in this fertile miasma
My pores moistened with entropic pestilence
Humid yet inert
Potent and directionless
Awaken”
The first few lines of the album in “The Tongue of the Demagogue” give you a good picture of what you're in for with this album. Meanwhile, the album cover of what seems to be a few spiders webs down a tunnel or cave or in a shed for all I know. This black and white cover is maybe apt, but not a great album cover by any means.

Overall, while the riffs are as good and varied as they are on “Denouement” with pretty much every style or playing you could thing of (Abyssal being listed as Death/Black/Doom gives you a clue), they don't seem to gel together as consistently to create the separate songs. A notable exception being “A Sheath of Deceit” although it's extremely abrupt ending annoys me every time I hear it. The band have stepped further into a more crushingly doomy soundscape – ever more fitting from a band called Abyssal and we're sinking further and further down into oblivion while being able to steer clear of 'style over substance'. I could never profess to being into doom at all really – especially not the extreme stuff. Occasionally the album wanders into this sort of territory and I start to zone out. There are always well thought out riffs to be heard or sufficient amounts of fuzz in the slower sections but sometimes requires a little more concentration to appreciate than I'm used to with most metal these days.

The pacing of the album isn't too bad, it's quite dynamic in it's variation between blasting and droning and sometimes even some softer moments - “the Headless Serpent” emphasises this perfectly, but I find myself starting to zone out towards the end of the album, with a six minute song and three 8+ minute long songs ending the album. This section unfortunately contains the immense (in both length and hugeness of sound), yet somewhat tedious instrumental “Created Sick; Commanded to the Well” in the middle of it. The closer “The Last King” however, it should be said, is fantastic and I think slightly more reminiscent of something off “Denouement”. Clocking in at 59 minutes, there's quite a lot to take in and the album my have benefited from cutting down the length of a couple of songs just to keep everything nice and tight. Abyssal have succeeded again in creating an oppressive, helpless, yet not quite melancholy atmosphere for our aural pleasure - as if someone had willingly entered the gaping void and had already accepted what they were in for. I'd probably jump in if the opportunity arose and I can't wait for their next instalment.

I've heard this band mostly compared with Mitochondrion and Portal (among others, but those are the ones I've listened to). I can't say I'm a fan of either – especially not Portal – but I can't say that I'm convinced there's much of a resemblance at all but I can say that if you like either of those bands you'll probably like this. Not being in to them myself, I'd say that if you're into death and/or doom or anything with a massive oppressive atmosphere then you'll enjoy this.

88/100

Mechanize was pretty strong comeback, however not perfect or mind-blowing and it’s definitely is not going to be classic like Demanufacture or Obsolete. The main problem of Mechanize is that mostly it doesn't even sound like FF. It is more like Divine Heresy with some industrial samples and Burton’s vocals. When Dino returned in FF he basically became the only songwriter, but thanks to Gene Hoglan who partially saved new Factory from the same problems which were in DH and brought freshness with creativity. So after the decent return fans expected the second album to be at least as good as the first one. Unfortunately on 'The Industrialist (TI)' Dino was a main songwriter. Gene and Byron left and Dino with Burton decided that they are fine with themselves and nobody else.

My first impressions after listening were more-less positive, but the more I listened to it the less did I enjoyed. First thing that catches ones eye is that most of the tracks are monotonous and immemorable. In the end i thought to myself "Holy shit! This is unbelievably dull!" I had a strong feeling that the music wasn't coming from the heart and was written just for radio and loyal hardcore fans. TI are missing something major: any sort of feeling and emotion. This is without a doubt the worst FF record along with Transgression. And while Transgression suffered from a lack of production and in fact was just a half-finished record, TI has a lot more noticeable flaws. I can describe it in a few words like "Commercialized lifeless garbage" or "Castrated Mechanize".

From the beginning "TI" is trying to sound like the classic FF, as similar to their earlier sound as possible, but unfortunately not in a good way. In fact it's really hard for me to even call this album “new” because more than a half of its material is just recycled throw-aways from their previous records. "TI" is an excellent example of self-copying style. It has a few good ideas here and there, but mostly they are mixed with tons of fillers and cliches. Dino's riffs are predictable, monotonous and faintly discernible no matter how many strings he has on his guitar. Also it's another proof that Raymond and Christian were important parts of the band and their absence affects quality of songwriting here even more than it was on Mechanize. I'm not going to make track-by-track review but nevertheless, i will describe few of them.

Let's start from song God Eater - the most interesting and unusual tune on entire record. This one has the potential, it could have turned out as a grandiose, epic masterpiece but it never happened. First minute is really reassuring but after that it's getting monotonously to death: chorus, repeating Dino's riff, again same chorus where Burton trying to sing clean, repeat - all of that plus sluggish drums leave not many chances and God eater devoured himself. The other (bonus) tracks are Timelessness II and Blush Response. Timelessness II is acoustic version of the Timelessness and Blush Response is some kind of remix which reminds stuff from Remanufacture. These tracks are nothing extraordinary and both pretty mediocre.

Also i would like to bring attention to some examples of self-copying on that album. 'Difference Engine' is basically re-recorded 'Hi-Tech Hate' with elements of 'Smasher/Devourer' and 'Acres of Skin'. 'Depraved Mind Murder' mostly based on main riff from 'Slave Labor' with some stuff from 'Digimortal' and 'Mechanize'. As for 'New Messiah', the beginning of song extremely reminds me 'Hi-Tech Hate' plus 'Act of God'. And title track 'The Industrialist' is the combination of 'Oxidizer' and 'Fear Campaign' with beginning from 'Christploitation'. I can go on but i think you got my point - too much of old re-written stuff here. A pretty brutal cover of Landfill (Pitchshifter) the only tune on the whole record which i could listen without intention to turn it off or to fall asleep.

Through all the years, Burton's vocals never developed at all and it is very noticeable on Industrialist. Moreover, clean vocals devolved and now comparing to other modern metal clean singers such as David Draiman, Wayne Static, Corey Taylor or even first DH singer Tommy "Vext" - all these guys can make clean type vocals much better than Burton does, he is definitely not at their level of professionalism, unfortunately. Thus, i don't really understand why it is a big deal around him, in my opinion he is pretty overrated. I've seen the band many times live, watched tons of youtube videos, the DVDs - that guy just can't do the clean vocals live. The only reason why he sounds passable on the records because of all these voice processing technologies like auto-tune etc. Despite of all those limitations, i think he did a great job on the "original line-up" records, even on Archetype plus some parts on Mechanize. Honesty and passion with which he used to sing on those early records - that's, i believe, the main reason why listeners love him so much. The main problem of new album is absence of the passion behind what he sings. From my point of view, the main reason why Burton is a vocalist on “TI” is because FF needs to release another album and it is just like a routine for him. All his tricks are old, choruses sound flat, annoying and soulless, harsh vocals are just nothing special. It's hard to explain how terrible some of those clean parts sound, it's more like some drunkard cowboy at the bar doing karaoke.

This album seems to be a sort of conceptual, about robot who becomes smart. But it won't be a concept only because you called it like that, there should be a strong fundamental behind all this. Burton became pretty limited as writer with all this lazy lyrics, even more obvious than album name itself -The Industrialist. Are they serious? I bet next one will be something like “The new industrial metal album by D. Cazares and B.C.Bell about machines etc.” Obsolete, Demanufacture, Digimortal - these three are the pure, strong concepts and the newest one is just an immature, limp and directionless. There are so many good themes and ideas in Sci-Fi which could be used by FF and it's sad that they can't write about something really new, fresh and inspired. While attentively reading lyrics i had a feeling that 90% of it is about religion, hate towards religions, governments, society and other trivial stereotypic bullshit, while some texts include random, pointless and meaningless phrases. "The Industrialist story" which Burton wrote in the booklet is OK, but only for a cartoon movie. It's really a simple story by average skill writer and it can be described in one sentence: automaton suddenly begins to think like human, accidentally meets others but less smart robots, talk to them, blah-blah, then he walks around and finds another automaton, they become pretty good friends, then those two quickly finds their so-called “creators” speaks with them little bit, after killing them they talk again, the end. Kids will love it but adult FF audience is surely tired from all this as well as me.

This time FF decided to abuse pro tools instead of usual work with a real drummer. All drums were made/programmed by Dino with a little help from John Sankey. It's actually nothing wrong with drum machine but only if you're using it smart! They failed with it on 'TI' - drum sound is so fucking boring, sterile, primitive, suffer from the same mistakes as Dino's riffs. This is the worst drum work FF ever had! By the way, Raymond used drum machine before, on Archetype (and even on Digimortal). Some tracks were fully composed in such way, but Ray actually played all that programmed parts on his kit as well. Then why they sound so great on those records? Well, maybe because he definitely knows better than a guitarist or vocalist how drums actually MUST sound! Also using drum machine instead of real drummer it's a cheap and lazy way out of paying someone and it brings no soul or style into the music - that's the biggest problem with it. The absence of Raymond's unique "stop-go" drumming, which was the key element of FF sound, affects the quality of drum patterns. Therefore Burt/Dino desperately tried so hard to imitate that kind of "stop-go" technique on TI. You can hear it on tracks TI, Recharger and New Messiah. These attempts to sound like Ray are just pathetic and clumsy, because substantially it's just a Ray’s parts/patterns rewritten with slight changes, only without any feeling. Dino and Burt must admit that they can't replace everyone in FF, especially guys like Raymond. Unless that replacement is Gene Hoglan, who with his technical skills and huge experience can at least partly replace distinctive Ray’s style.

The only person whom i cannot bash is Rhys Fulber. This guy probably is the only reason why you should listen to this record at least once. He fills those many empty places on the album with amazing samples bringing an atmosphere and at least some vibe. But why the hell did he made that nine minute track Human Augmentation?? I guess when musicians don't have enough good material, such unnecessarily long track could become good filler. It could be cut to 3 minutes without any losses in quality.

Summary, i can't say that i hate TI, but i definitely don't like Bell's and Cezares attitude towards the band members and songwriting as well, because to say that Fear Factory is only (!!!) singer and a guitarist is too fucking ignorant. It's not completely bad record and if one can pretend that never heard any other FF songs before, this one can probably be sometimes enjoyable. But personally for me, TI is a pitiful attempt to sound again important, trying to ensure everyone that FF is still a strong band and even better than ever, but obviously it is not like that. Being afraid of losing the pitiful remnants of fan base, they left no room for any kind of experimentation or imagination, they simply didn't dared to push the boundaries. This is a 100% "fanboy" oriented record, probably for non-picky listeners who expect FF doing absolutely the same formulaic shit on every album. But let's just face the facts - Dino and Burt completely ran out of new ideas and only exploit their previous achievements. I'm pretty sure that TI could have been much diverse if they had at least Gene Hoglan involved in songwriting process. Unfortunately, they chose the most unoriginal, outdated way to use the old proved formula to release albums every 2 years and according to Dino the new one is expecting in 2014. As to me this is a great example of the situation when quality is sacrificed to quantity.

So why did i gave 20%? A few nice and most important new riffs, interesting solos and of course fine work of Rhys Fulber. That's it! In conclusion, while writing this review, i accidentally found on Youtube songs called “Ammunition” and "My Grave" from Transgression sessions. These two are on the same excellent quality as well as the stuff from Mechanize or Obsolete, and that fact that they was written by two people who aren't a part of FF any longer and according to Burton "absolutely not important" makes me extremely sad.