Everybody so far forget to mention 2 very important factors about this album. Yes, its good Burton C. Bell and Dino Cazares are back as the main guys making the music. I think Gene Hoglan is amongst the best metal drummers of all time. That awesome fat man could eat pizza while playing quadruple bass, just hear those skills on "City" by Strapping Young Lad, dude is fucking insane.
Still though, the 2 most important factors nobody is mentioning is (A) Rhys Fulber is producing again and (B) Greg Reely is mixing again. Thats 2 amazing contributors who really do make an album sound better just by turning a few knobs and adjusting a few EQs. The production on "Mechanize" is HUGE. I mean, it couldn't not be huge, since there really are very few sounds going on, but the delivery is immaculate.
The only downside is that its coming 10 years too late. Fear Factory hasn't been relevant since "Obsolete". It was "Digimortal" that was responsible for Fear Factory's downfall. All the albums that came after Dino's departure were just so blah that I think everybody gave up on 'em entirely.
That sucks for Fear Factory, since this really is the best album I have heard from those guys since "Demanufacture" and the remixes from "Remanufacture". I just hope that when FF decides to tour, its not playing to a half-room of 30 year old guys who remember when Fear Factory was good in the 90s. No young kids hearing about it means no young kids getting into it, and Fear Factory can expect to play to suburb dads for the duration of their remaining career.
It just makes me think of the time I saw Soulfly and Prong a couple months back. There wasn't a 20 year old in the entire crowd. It felt like everybody in the crowd had a semi-receding hairline and a gut from stress-eating.
...but yeah... "Mechanize" is top notch. I still loathe the falsetto nut-squeeze vocals, but its done fairly tastefully on this album, and the overall brutality more than makes up for a few faults.
