Dino Cazares, the original poster-boy for Original Blackouts, is back together with Fear Factory, the band he co-created. And now Seymour Duncan is proud to offer you a sneak preview of “Powershifter,” one of the tracks from Fear Factory’s unreleased album, Mechanize.
Formed in the early ‘90s, Fear Factory reinvented both death metal and industrial rock with an arsenal of sonic styles. However, in 2002, Dino left the band and went on to form Devine Heresy, Brujeria and Asesino; and vocalist Burton C. Bell took a few months off before eventually reforming the band and releasing two more records over the next few years. However, without Dino in the mix, Fear Factory was missing a key element of its sound and wound up feeling like a shadow of their former selves.
“It just didn’t feel complete,” says Bell. “I realized that Dino and I were a real integral part of Fear Factory and we needed each other to make it work, and without the both of us it lost that intensity.”
With bassist Byron Stroud and drummer Gene Hoglan (Dethklok, Strapping Young Lad), Fear Factory was back and ready for action. The result of their union, Mechanize, is a full-fisted blast of passion and innovation that sounds like the missing link between’s 1995’s caustic, groundbreaking Demanufacture and 1998’s more texturally nuanced Obsolete. Songs like “Powershifter” are crushing and colossal, melding rhythms as fast and precise as uzi blasts with vocals that pinwheel from raw and scathing to hauntingly melodic.
While both Bell and Cazares agree that it’s sometimes hard to juggle all the projects they’re working on, they’ve both got Fear Factory on the front-burner and they’re as excited about the band again as they were in the early ‘90s. Moreover, they’re approaching it with a new level of maturity and professionalism.
“We’ve all changed a bit as people over the years,” Bell says. “We’ve developed patience and we’ve had some humbling experiences. And when those things happen you realize that the types of battles we had in the past are just a waste of time. And time is precious.”
