In 1992 Fear Factory may well have been the new kids on the block but the style of metal they created was something akin to a new sound that battered the competition. 'Soul Of...' is an inventive, aggressive and heavyweight mixture of pounding, dry industrial metal and technological death metal, the brutality of it all leaving me shuddering for weeks after I'd lent an ear, then had it burnt off by the sheer fury within.Burton C. Bell slips from whispering maniac to rasping terror, all the while the machinery rolls behind him, it's not quite death metal but what is it exactly ? No wonder there was a buzz around this band long before this record hit the shelves, because it was obviously clear that there was going to be a massive rubble clean up after this wrecking ball had hit down.
There are choruses here also, a fresh approach, something progressive yet catchy, but never losing its weight despite its intention to create. The guitars here are the cogs which work this whole thing, but there's so much going on here, kick-starting a new wave of metal in the early '90s that would culminate in the demise of the '80s metal imagery.
'Martyr' is a raping classic, complete with electronic vocal effects, Bell's variety adding a new ingredient to the mix, 'Scapegoat' somehow catchy yet ominous, the whole mechanism being a huge, churning iron wheel, buttons being frantically pushed, effects constantly triggered, the metal world ablaze as these four guys carve their niche, haunting us for many years to come although never equalling the domination of this pumping debut. This was the new noise.
8.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment