Over half an hour since the doors opened and the queue of fans is still 100 metres long.
With the 20th anniversary of Demanufacture, Fear Factory are playing their seminal second album in its entirety and you’d be hard-pressed to find a southwest metal fan not in attendance. The innovative cyber-metallers aren’t just a hard act to follow, but a hard act to precede; offering up support are fellow LA rockers, ONCE HUMAN [7], whose assertion of being “metal as fuck” isn’t so far from truth – mainly down to the badass lead vocals.
The fans don’t need much warming up, though, and the rammed pit is enough to break anyone out in a sweat. FEAR FACTORY [9] don’t disappoint, and even all these years down the line, not a note is out of place. Burton C Bell’s vocals, although understandably aged, withstand the heat as several hundred fans scream every word in unison. Demanufacture was the album that defined the band and a genre, with a sound and concept that resonates and only grows more relevant.
Experiencing it live, full throttle, 20 years since its inception, from the drilled, automated riffs of Self Bias Resistor through the cybernetic thrash of Body Hammer to Pisschrist’s straining at the leash, only further affirms why this is the record that put Fear Factory on the map and earned them a place in metal’s history books.
