Year : 2012
Genre : Industrial Metal
Label : Candlelight Records
Origin : United States
Rating : 7.0 / 10
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Introductory info is quoted from
this Wikipedia page. :
The Industrialist will be a concept album, Burton C. Bell said. "The protagonist (The Industrialist) is the incarnation of all industries in the form of an automaton. The mechanical, technological, and scientific advances through the industrial age led to the creation of The Industrialist. In the story, the automaton becomes sentient as it collects memories with each passing day. Through observation and learning, it gains the will to exist. What was meant to help man, will eventually be man’s demise." ...
This album shows tremendous initial promise at being the audio interpretation of a recent popular image of science (fiction?) depicting dehumanized humanity at the verge-, or, maybe, at the middle of a war that it is waging against its own creations. The concept is not new, yet its current interpretation, by Fear Factory, at least attempts to imbue novelty into the mix, as now the narrative attraction revolves around the automaton who becomes sentient. Pinocchio 2.0. You know the Quake games, and you know the movie Avatar. Sure, they are separate mythologies, still, the technology revealed in these sagas are super-similar to each other in "feel". Technology, if sufficiently sophisticated, can not be differentiated from magic, still, it is fun to see weapons so big that you'd need a set of cranes to lift and fire. I have a hunch that Fear Factory wanted to take you on a thorough sonic sightseeing in an alternate reality in which humanity wages war with the aid of rocket powered projectiles and plazma AGAINST sentient technology that decided that
your flesh is an insult to the perfection of the digital. -
Shodan style. Alas!, this invitation is so frequent indeed, -
here is a relatively recent one, orchestrated to progressive metal - that the sentient automaton direction promises some structural narrative which wasn't thoroughly explored yet by music. You wished.
Once again, this type-, this ethos of sci-fi is not unknown, nor novelty - but superb fun! - since 1979's Alien, as, let's face it, to this day, modern sci-fi rips off the industrial look depicted in the Alien movies. Doom rips off this environmental lingo, Quake rips it off, Avatar, the movie is a rip-off of that look, too, only more meticulously realized and organic elements were added as the counterbalancing of the industrial visual lingo. So, Fear Factory's new album, I feel, is a KUDOS! attempt to the look and feel of the Alien movies and the "feel" of a war you wage against sentient evil machines. Beware of the toaster. EVIL! Oh really. Tell me about it. I'm listening. Quite -ha. ha. - literally.
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