ALBUM REVIEW: Aggression Continuum – Fear Factory

So here it is. Six years of lawsuits, line-up changes and Twitter spats and finally, the album once thought to be called Monolith is with us. And while it appears that FEAR FACTORY will soldier on, the departure of long-term vocalist Burton C. Bell is going to be tough to get over. Bell has been the voice of the machine for their entire career and the ugly nature of his exit will inevitably leave a mark on their legacy. But, if the defining era of FEAR FACTORY’s history is truly at an end, Aggression Continuum is a fitting swansong.

Put simply, it’s a great heavy metal album packed full of songs that equal their quintessential nineties work. It’s a pulverising slab of biomechanical fury, Dino Cazares doling out riffs that sound like they were engineered by Skynet, while Bell’s vocals switch between emotive crooning and a tortured, cybernetic bark. There are blast beats aplenty, hooks big enough to pull down a Hunter Killer and it’s as bleakly ferocious as they’ve ever been. The synthetic flesh has been blasted away, but the gleaming metal endoskeleton is still moving, and the soulless red eyes have not yet gone dark.

The likes of Manufactured Hope and Recode are the sound of a band firing on all cylinders, not one falling apart through internal dissent. They are dynamic, heavy as hell and the effective keyboard work gives them an abundance of character. There’s a seething anger to the title track as well; a grooving, chrome-plated ferocity that manifests itself in a massive chorus and some violent guitar work. It breaks no new ground, but it does serve as a potent reminder of why they were once considered one of industrial metal’s most exciting acts.

Disruptor is similarly impressive, while Fuel Injected Suicide Machine is a hard-hitting pit igniter. They manage to avoid front-loading the album as well; Monolith shows up relatively late with a pounding, synth-backed lead riff, a couple of huge mosh moments and a defiantly melodic chorus. It’s a good example of how playing with the dynamics of a song can yield big rewards and would have been huge if it turned up on MTV circa 2001.

Make no mistake; this album isn’t a ‘return to form’ but only because on record, FEAR FACTORY hadn’t dropped the ball. The ongoing drama of their offstage lives might have dented their careers, but their last three albums – Mechanize, The Industrialist, Genexus – were all terrific. And so is Aggression Continuum. Hopefully this isn’t the end of these mechanical men, but if it is, this is a remarkably good way to bring the hydraulic press down and crush the life out of the machine.

Rating: 8/10

Aggression Continuum is set for release on June 18th via Nuclear Blast Records. 

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