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.