Ladies and Gentlemen, let me welcome you to my review of "Genexus", the latest and much-anticipated album from the Industrial Metal machine that is known as FEAR FACTORY. According to Wikipedia, this is their first album to feature Mike Heller on drums and their first release since joining Nuclear Blast Records. Though it only has a forty-eight minute total playing time, it is a beast of an album, typical of what we would expect to hear from this leviathan quartet of Metallum Industrialis.

"People are always fearful of something they don't understand. The next step of evolution is machinery." These are the first two sentences for the opening monologue of "Autonomous Combat System" and represent the general lyrical motif for which this band has come to be known. The music opens up with a bit of a symphonic score, and then explodes in traditional FEAR FACTORY fashion, going from zero to 100 in a split second, all pistons firing. Pulse pumping, the servo motors kick on, full speed ahead.

Those beautiful open chord stutter progressions present themselves as a mathematically engineered platter of notes, spread over the course of a song and prepared as though they were made just for the listener. One of the most amazing features of the music is that the double bass drumming and guitar strumming sync up without fail, whatsoever. It is what makes their music so distinguishable. Those combo vocals of Burton's give off a nice melodic contrast to the brutality of the heavy riffs, especially in "Anodized" and "Expiration Date." The latter even reminds me of "Final Exit," a song off of their "Mechanize" album from 2010.

Also, if you are looking for a throw-down style track, "Soul Hacker" is probably your best bet. It is a ball-to-the-wall, down-tuned, energetic piece that starts off with a sonic fistfight and does not let up the entire song.

Though an outstanding album on its own, "Genexus" does not present itself with a true standout, next-level song like "The Industrialist." Though by album standards, "Protomech" and "Genexus" will likely be the favorites due to their marketability.

So be sure to maintain your humanity, not getting lost in the musica mechanicas and assimilating into your cyborg form. This album will convert you, and you have now been warned. Prepare for the "Genexus!"<