Mechanize

Mechanize is the first album by the line-up Burton C. Bell and Dino Cazares announced in April 2009, after nine years apart. Bassist Byron Stroud and drummer Gene Hoglan completed it, and it remains the only Fear Factory record Hoglan played on. Former members Raymond Herrera and Christian Olde Wolbers were outside that arrangement, and the two camps have described the split very differently ever since. Rhys Fulber produced, returning to the band for the first time since Archetype, and the mechanical texture of the early records comes back to the front with him. The construction is familiar -- tightly chopped riffs and level double bass under a roared verse and a sung chorus -- but the weight is heavier than before. "Fear Campaign" carries a conventional guitar solo, which the band almost never uses, and its video went out on 2 February 2010, ahead of the record. The writing is specific and dark. "Controlled Demolition" is built on audio from a 911 call made from the second tower of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, and the title "Final Exit" is taken from Derek Humphry's 1991 book. It sold about 10,000 copies in its first week. The running order here is the original ten-track pressing; some editions add re-recorded bonus tracks.