Demanufacture

Only a very few albums can be considered as essentials or revolutionary through the history of the metal scene. During the last decades an astonishing amount of works have been released, most of them mediocre, some of them excellent and a few of them masterpieces, but even less deserve the status of groundbreaking or revolutionary as I have said before.

Fear Factory´s sophomore album, the worldwide acclaimed Demanufacture is one of them. It is well known that the 90s were a time for a splendid evolution in the metal world, when the expansion of the range of styles were enormous and demostrated how metal music could be combined with an amazing variety of sounds. Los Angeles located band supposed the perfect example of this tendency. FF was the very first band who combined death metal growls, cutting riffs and extreme drums with electronic sounds, creating a new hybrid style. Today´s yet imitated Burton´s vocals (a combination of growls and clean voices), the precise and fast double bass drums patterns and the electronic atmosphere shocked all the fans who listened to their music at that time.

Demanufacture was born as the perfected version of this new style, where the band took the brutality from this debut, refinned the sound, added some ambient keyboards and created an amazing futuristic atmosphere. This addition was basic to reinforce the sense of their lyrics, which related to how a technological obsessed civilization had lost its humanity and was destroyed by the machines they had created. The album begins with an instant classic, the homonym song, the atmospheric synthetizer mixed with the initial riff and double bass drum is legendary and the perfect definition of the band. The song itself is a crushing continuation of low tunned riffs, tremendous drums and the charismatic vocals which flow from the semi-growls to the amazing clean vocals.

The first part of the cd is absolutely unbeatable. The second song, Self Blias Resistor, is even heavier, and has an amazing final chorus. Zero Signal is one of the most futuristic songs with an amazing atmosphere and a touching final piano. Following these ones we find the most famous composition of the band, Replica, being sincere is not one of their best songs but it is straightforward and has a killer chorus, it was the perfect single and was presented with an original video.

The second part of the work maintains the great level although there are not songs as good as the first ones until we reach almost the end. When Pisschrist begins an industrial anthem smashes our brains, believe me this song is tremendous!. In my opinion it should be considered as the most dramatic, dark an epic piece ever created by these guys. The beginning is very characteristic with the industrial intro and Herrera´s impassive drums, Burton sings here amazingly and with a great ferocity and the rhytmic guitars are very mechanic and hammering. But the best is yet to come, the final chorus is absolutely marvellous, the clean vocals sound apocalyptic, and the keyboards create a dark and majestic atmosphere. All finishes with the repetitive and frightening chorus “ Where is your saviour now?”. Absolutely tremendous!

In conclusion this album has not only been considered as a masterpice but also as a landmark in the metal music scene, being a reference to the next generations. A must have!!