Review Summary: It's as if Fear Factory are androids programmed to be a metal band.
What's so mind blowing about Demanufacture is that it came out almost 20 years ago. It just goes to show how incredible of a producer Colin Richardson is. What's also great about the album, and the band in general, is how well they compliment each other with their instrumentation. Dino Cazares' stiff and heavy guitar work blends well with Raymond Herrera's bass kicks that even machine drums tend to envy, sound like firearms in an abandoned warehouse. Though they're not the most complex band out there, It's the force and perfection in their combination of death metal and industrial, like on Soul Of The New Machine, and expanding it to grand proportions. The chorus on "Zero Signal" is the best example of brutal instrumentation from the band and the quite symphonic vocals by Burton C. Bell and the addition of synth's working off of each other. To be honest, it's very eerie how pitch perfect everything is about every song. It's as if Fear Factory are androids programmed to be a metal band, and I wouldn't be surprised if happened to be the truth...
Most tracks on here, like "Self Bias Resistor", "New Breed", and "H-K (Hunter Killer)" is very standard Fear Factory, with frantic drumming and relentless guitar work alongside barking (And sometimes clean) vocals. However if that was how the whole album was like, it would make it seem a tad boring after some time. Thankfully with songs like "Replica", being a very groove tinged classic of theirs, "Dog Day Sunrise", a cover that's comparable to the original, And "A Therapy For Pain", without a doubt the highlight of the entire album. Demanufacture's closer is not only the slowest song of the album, but it's also one of the most heartfelt and dark songs. "Body Hammer" is another slower song, having the most memorable guitar riff out of any song on this entire album.
Some copies have 4 bonus tracks on them, but they don't seem to fit well being placed after "A Therapy For Pain". They would've been better off leaving them separate on a mini disc or something. Besides those bonus tracks, the original 11 song album by Fear Factory is not only the best album by the band, but also one of the best metal albums from the 1990's. It's simply the key Industrial Metal album if you're looking to get more into the subgenre.
