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For years I’ve heard the stories of Fear Factory (FF) from my friends. I was never much of a fan of them. I’ve heard stuff from their older albums, songs like “Edgecrusher” and stuff off of Demanufacture, but I wasn’t much of a metal fan at the time and the stuff was too heavy for my tastes. I didn’t like the blasting drums or the harsh vocals, so, for years afterwards, even after becoming a fan of some death metal bands and embracing the metal genre in general, I never sought out any Fear Factory. Fast forwards to 2004. From what I’ve heard, FF had kind of fallen from prominence in the metal scene. Their last new studio album 2001’s Digimortal, had not gotten favorable reviews from the metal press, and was not embraced kindly by their fans. It seemed that FF had gone soft, a bit too mainstream and heading more towards the sounds of other, more popular metal bands, like Slipknot or Disturbed. So, when Archetype was set to come out, they approached with extreme caution, hoping to not be disappointed again. The most certainly were not. I, on the other hand, didn’t care… until I heard the title track. I had heard so much praise for Archetype that I became curious to see what the fuss was all about. So, my friend had the song “Archetype” on a mix CD and played it and I was immediately hooked. I needed to own this album. When I finally bought it and took it home, all of my doubts and misconceptions about Fear Factory had been ended. I liked what I heard, and now I’m more interested in getting this band’s back catalog than I am any other. This album Archetype is pretty much pure metal aggression, something other American metal bands need to pay attention too. For the most part, it’s not about being the most technical, the most melodious or to move the hearts and minds of the average metal listener and it’s certainly not about getting on the radio. This album is just “Put it in the stereo and headbang till your neck comes off” metal. The two voices of singer Burton C. Bell, who has an excellent metal growl as well as a decent, almost moving clean voice leads the album perfectly. The guitars and the drums seem to perfectly complement one another. It’s not the best guitar work, but it gets the job done and the drumming keeps thing progressing very nice. Even the faint keyboards you hear on it add another level of depth to the seeming machine-driven sound of the album. “Fear Factory” is a very appropriate name for this kind of music, because it sounds like the metal version of the mechanical activities in a factory. This is the soundtrack to the mechanized post-apocalypse. The opening song “Slave Labor” is the perfect opening song to an album of this nature. It begins with aggressive drums, a catchy riff and a spooky keyboard, setting you up for what will be an intense metal ride. This song is just a mid-paced metalfest, not the best song on the album but catchy enough to leave you wanting more. This song definitely “Pours the gasoline” to properly ignite the fire that is Archetype. “NOTHING YOU SAY MATTERS TO US!! F*CK YOU!!!” are the words that kick off “Cyberwaste”, a song that is pure aggressive death metal. The frantic drums on the song are the driving force behind three minutes of headbanging fury and are perfect for the feeling of rebellion and anger the song is trying to convey. Bell’s screaming belts out every word in the song with extreme prejudice and rage. The riff work is pretty basic throughout the entire song, but definitely stick in your head. This song is probably the angriest, heaviest and catchiest song on the album. It’s a pretty basic death metal style song, but it will be one that you’ll skip back to hear again when it’s over so you can scream along with it. “Act of God” continues the great song trend. A number of fast blast beats start the song, deluding them into thinking they’re about to hear another “Cyberwaste”, but soon they find themselves to be wrong. The verse kicks off into traditional FF fury, standard headbanging fare, once again the guitars and drums complementing each other perfectly, but the entire mood changes when they get to the refrain. This is when Bell’s clean vocals take center stage, the keyboards kick in and almost a beautiful and “digital” sound. The song makes for a nice mix between the normal FF sound of growling, screaming vocals and powerful percussive metal and the lighter side of Burton’s voice and FF’s ability to invoke a connection with the listener through the calmer style they can create. It makes for an undoubtedly pure metal song with a sensitive side and results in one of the best tracks on the album. The sensitive metal assault continues with “Drones”, one of the albums best tracks in this reviewer’s opinion. An ominous keyboard is settled over an intense drum and guitar pattern, which soon explodes into a mid-tempo riff with Bell’s trademark death vocals accompanying into one musical force of power. Then, the guitar and drums break form, and Bell’s clean voice arises again revealing the true essence of the song. The emotion in Bell’s voice is amazing when complemented with his normal vocals and this song perfectly encompasses both of his vocal talents. You’ll find yourself singing along with the refrain by the end of this song, all the while impressed by the emotion that comes out of this mechanical metal song. The crown jewel of the album would be the title track, “Archetype”. The song that got me hooked on Fear Factory in general. It starts out differently from the rest of the songs thus far, taking off in mid-riff rather than building up to it, with light accompanying keyboards and some clean singing from Bell. From start to finish, you know this is one of the best metal songs made in 2004. It’s unquestionably a FF song, but it also feels almost like it has some progressive leanings to it. The high-soaring chorus “Look into my eyes, and tell me what you see”, should catch the ear of any fans of bands lighter than Fear Factory, but the song retains enough of an edge to satisfy fans of older FF as well. It’s got unrivaled aggression, a softer almost beautiful chorus and maintains the same energy for the entire song. It basically has a little something for everyone. This song alone opened my eyes to Fear Factory, and I think it could have the same effect on you. “OPEN YOUR EYES!” to “Archetype”. The album changes drastically as it goes into “Corporate Cloning”, but it’s not a bad thing. It’s very different from anything thus far on the album. While the other songs complemented the heavier riffs with the heavy vocals, this goes in a different direction. It’s almost less of an industrial sound and a melding of slow techno and metal. It’s a very interesting song, very robotic and static sounding. Bell’s softer and growlier vocals share the verses, singing in synch with the drum beats, making a very interesting meld, exploding into pure anger and then becoming softer as the catchy refrain of the song begins, once again showcasing Bell’s more emotional register. Far from being as good as the few songs that proceed it, but there’s something very unique and compelling here. Unfortunately, the album makes its first big stumble at “Bite the Hand That Bleeds”, a slow boring song without much to offer. It’s got its heavy and softer parts, but overall it doesn’t live up to the energy the other songs had. It’s got a decent amount of the cleaner style vocals, but it sounds much less emotional and falls much flatter than most of the other songs here. It attempts to be the moody, deep song on the album but the heavier songs have much more feeling than this snoozefest. “Undercurrent” returns some the energy to the album. There’s not much new or different here from what you’ve already heard, but it’s not a bad track. It’s just a typical mid-album metal song. It won’t be remembered forever, but it’s got its own nice personal touch to the album. Some nice heavier parts, a nice refrain, nothing exceptional but nothing disappointing. A heavy bass riff kicks off “Default Judgement”, which makes for a cool change from the more drum and guitar driven sounds from the rest of the album. It’s a slower, but still commendable heavy song with another soaring, catchy refrain which contrasts nicely to the general low-pitched bass-driven nature of this song. Yet, overall, it’s just like the song that precedes it, a good song but ultimately forgettable. The appropriately named “Bonescraper” is just a flat out ear-splitting piece of metal. The drums shake up the listener, and the extremely distorted vocals do a pretty good job of “scraping bones”. The song is pretty much just a drumming scream-fest. Now, depending on what kind of metal fan you are, that could be a good or a bad thing. Personally, compared to the earlier songs on this album, I’m personally just not too big on this one. It just doesn’t stand out like some of the other ones. This brings us to “Human Shields”, which is another very interesting breakaway from the rest of the album. It begins much calmer than the rest of the album, a calm riff, lighter drumming and an ominous almost creepy kind of keyboard laying with it. It turns into a slow-paced and interesting almost soulful metal piece as the vocals kick in and the guitars turn up. This is kind of the song “Bite the Hand that Bleeds” wishes it was, a slow-paced metal song with a feeling of dread over it that definitely pulls in the listener as the real passion in Bell’s voice is heard in the softer and heavier styles. It’s definitely not the kind of song that FF is known for doing, but it shows that they’re capable of more than just blast beats. The last two tracks “Ascension” and “School” can be skipped so that you can get back to “Slave Labor” and start all over again. “Ascension” is basically an instrumental extension of “Human Shields” and is about 7 minutes of pointless keyboard and wind, which does well to go for the desolate robotic landscape this album feels like it’s trying to show, but overall it takes a good deal of patience to sit through this track and “School” is just a decent cover of a crappy Nirvana song, nothing more. Archetype means a prototype or a test, and personally I really hope this is the archetype for upcoming Fear Factory albums. While this album’s strongest songs are those that kick it off, there’s enough towards the end to keep the listener wanting to hear what’s coming next, and I think that’s what makes a really good album. While listening to this, I always wanted to hear what they were going to pull next and while some of the songs have similar styles or progression, each song on the album adds its own unique flavor to this album. What lies later in the album might disappoint some compared to the excellent first few tracks, but to me it’s still better than most of the American metal out there. Now that I’ve heard some older FF, I can say that this could most definitely be considered a successful comeback for this band, and I just regret that I wasn’t a fan of theirs years ago to experience the true fall and resurrection of Fear Factory. This is a metal album that American metalheads can be proud to call their own.
Fear Factory is…
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