Fear Factory - Genexus

Fear Factory Genexus cover
Fear Factory
Genexus
Nuclear Blast
2015
5.5
So the duo, Burton C. Bell (vocals) & Dino Cazares (guitars), continues releasing new albums. Almost 3 years after the poor “The Industrialist”, Fear Factory are back but without making the same mistake as before. Now they used a real drummer, Mike Heller (Malignancy), instead of a drum-machine and that has worked for their own benefit. It’s really odd that a band like FF decided to use a drum-machine with so catastrophic results for their reputations!
 
“Genexus” has all those elements that made the band successful back in the day. The guitars are heavy & groovy, the drumming is intense and Burton sounds OK, for a guy that has a limited voice range and that’s more than obvious on his clean vocals. He’s not bad by any means, but some of the melodic refrains sound somewhat similar in a way. The production is rather heavy & strong, but a bit “plastic” at places.
 
The album features several guest appearances by: Deen Castronovo (Journey) on drums, Damien Rainaud on keys & programming, Rhys Fulber on keys & programming, Giuseppe Bassi on keys, programming & samples, Laurent Tardy on piano and Mister Sam on spoken word. “Genexus” is OK on the whole but it lacks freshness & pep. It has its clichés and at times it becomes a bit boring cuz you get too much of the same. Surely, the fans of the band will enjoy it much more than the previous album, which was a bad parenthesis for the band.