Transgression

by

Fear Factory

Edit

I have been a Fear Factory fan since the first album. I've seen them play in every crappy club and big arena that I could drive to. One thing I can say about Fear Factory is, they are consistantly good, live and on every album. They stick to their roots and at the same time are not afraid to grow as musicians and obviously people. To all the young fans out there looking for the same crappy sound that everyband is putting out nowadays: stfu. This album is very good. I even like the covers, because they did them their way. And their way is good. I reccomend this album to anyone that is a long time Fear Factory fan or anyone openminded enough to not want to hear the same damn song on every album by every artist forever. It is a solid effort and I like something about every single song on it.

For this, Fear Factory gets a big smooch from me, for continuing to provide me with a plethora of music that I can enjoy for the rest of my life without fear of ever being bored by them.

Or is that the "Fear". No, it's really the industrial elements I'm missing most in Trangression. These are my impressions after listening to the album for 2 weeks regularly:

The first few songs sent me diving for the internet to see if they had replaced their drummer. Where is the double-kick?

The next few listens made me think they've replaced their guitarist - no rhythmic downstroke chugs in perfect time with the kick? Well that could just be because their IS no kick...

Then the second half of the album basically descends into what you might mistake for a compilation of all the "soft" songs off FF's previous albums. Ballads, etc.

And then comes "I will follow". Hang on, is this a Killers album? One thing that always p'd me off about FF is the way they modify their style each album to sound slightly like whatever's popular. They Kornified themselves in Obsolete; they nu-metalled themselves after that... This is NOT maturing - this is biting a style for reasons of pure commercialism.

So all in all... it's Fear Factory - they can't really do TOO much wrong. Even when they're bad they're pretty good. It's hard to live up to a genre birthing album like Demanufacture and, sorry people, that's IS what people are looking for when they get the urge to hear some Fear Factory.

On that note I'd like to say to all those people reviewing this album (or any album on Amazon). It annoys me that reviewers will violently slag off other reviewers for not "appreciating the maturing of the band", and to "get over it, they've changed". You're entitled to your opinion on the album, but equally valid is the opinion of the once-fan has been severely disappointed with the album. In fact maybe more valid because a large amount of people who come looking for a review on Amazon will be fans of a bands "original" style and expect more of the same. If Fear Factory put out an album vastly different from the sound that made them the pioneers of their genre then they've gotta expect a lot of disappointed fans. Yes, I came here looking for some more Cybermetal offerings in the vain of Demanufacture (coz EVERYONE I'm sure can agree - it is FF's definitive album). If I'd wanted a "matured" (read "lazily composed/throwaway") album like Trangression I'd have searched Amazon for any one of the thousands of nu-metal clones out there.

Obviously there is a little hypocrisy in my own review. If I hadn't felt the need to defend my "old school" views on FF then maybe I woulda spent more time giving an in-depth analysis of the album. Props to those reviewers who did just that; objectively sizing up the album's good and bad points and rating it in consideration with what the majority of fans expect form this band.