Style: Industrial metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: Man vs. machines, mortality
Thoughts:
Nothing is the way it seems
Discerning man from machines
Dominate as to erase
Wiping man from the Earth's face
To eradicate Humanity
Man is obsolete
Erased, extinct
I hated Obsolete when it came out. I thought that it was a huge step down from Demanufacture in every way. The production, the musicianship, the songwriting, everything. Fear Factory was my favorite band at the time and to say that I was disappointed was the understatement of the century.
Time passed and I would listen to the album once every now and then, but I would almost always go back to Demanufacture instead. The songs sounded hollow, the intensity had gone, it wasn't the same band anymore.
Over the years I started to notice small things about Obsolete that I had missed. Raymond's drumming is incredibly technical; far beyond anything that he had done in Demanufacture. The riffs were ok, still not as good as Demanufacutre, but they were better I first thought. The vocals though, this is where I was gravely mistaken. Burton had never sounded better than he had on this album.
Some twenty some years later I'm looking back and while Demanufacture is still an amazing album, Obsolete stands on its own. This is not Demanufacture part 2 like I had been hoping for, this is an album that stands as it's own chapter in Fear Factory's history.
The way that Shock starts out the album is impressive. The bass drop right at the start of the main riff is insane and almost blows out my speakers if I have it turned up high enough. Edgecrusher is an artifact of the time with heavy nu metal influences. While I hated this song with a loathing passion at first, I've come to tolerate it over time.
Smasher/Devourer and Securitron both have moments that get stuck in my head for long periods of time. As I'm getting ready for salvation or getting ready to abide and adhere, both of these songs are incredible at the emotions they evoke out of me.
Granted the middle of the album is not as strong as the beginning or end. Descent is a bit of a let down, so is Hi-Tech Hate. Things pick up again with Freedom or Fire and the title track... both of these tracks rip my face off with their aggression.
Timelessness stands as one of my favorite closing tracks to an album. The entire album has been about the folly of man and the superiority of machines. The music has been violent and utterly content to destroy any mortal in it's path. Compare this to the mellow string quartet and Burton's beautiful clean vocals featured on the track - I can't think of a better way to close out the album.
The track releases me from my consciousness and makes me feel like I'm floating through space. Burton's ethereal vocals take center stage as he describes a man facing death. This is how you end an album, one of the best songs the band ever wrote.
25 or so years after it's release I think that Obsolete is on the same level as Demanufacture. It's not quite to the levels of Mechanize but it is among the bands best. Indispensable for fans of the band and of the industrial metal genre as a whole.
Written December 11th 2023
No comments:
Post a Comment