Fear Factory - Mechanize

Me and Fear Factory go a long way back. Not the actual band, but their music. I first heard Obsolete during my high school years and it changed how I looked at music. Hear was a band that could tell a story, have great lyrics and be talented and heavy as a 40-ton rock dropping from space. I quickly went out and bought all their studio albums at the time from the "death meets industrial experiment" feeling of Soul of a New Machine to the "eh, why not?" atmosphere of Digimortal. While all the albums had their strong points, none of them had the precision and sense of craftsmanship of Obsolete. It was then I learned they were breaking up. I was slightly saddened that Fear Factory would forever be one of those "one great album" bands, until I heard of their reunion (sans guitarist Dino Cazares) and strode out to the store to pick up Archetype. Everything about that album (even the poorly chosen cover of Nirvana's "School") was amazing and rivaled Obsolete's precision with its sheer dominance and aggression. The band fell back into the nu metal crack with Transgression and I was prepared to write them off yet again. Now they're back with Mechanize, an album that rivals both Obsolete and Archetype in Fear Factory's catalog.
Things kick off with spine-cracking title track, which lets you know that Dino's back, Gene Hoglan's on drums and you are about to end up a puddle on the floor. Luckily, with the intensity, vocalist Burton C. Bell hasn't forgotten how to carry a tune and it's at the moments when he's switching between belting out raging demon vocals and harmonies on line with U2's Bono that this album is at its greatest.
The album has great track after great track, my personal favorites being "Mechanize", "Powershifter", "Fear Campaign", "Oxidizer", "Designing the Enemy" and the haunting "Final Exit". Whether you're a Fear Factory fan or just a general metal fan, I highly recommend Mechanize. Fear Factory's back on their game and even though their next album will probably be another disaster, it's good to know they have a trifecta of perfect albums under their belt.