Customer Reviews

Obsolete

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

If you love the heaviest of heavy metal and have not heard this album, you do not know what you are missing! This album is truely awesome. It all starts off with "Shock", a heavy, grinding, kickin song, perfect for waking you up when you feel a little logy. From there, we have my personal favorite, "Edgecrusher", which kind of sounds like a Korn song, only about ten times better than anything by that band. From there, you've got several raging, bone-shattering songs that will blow you right out of your seat (with a short break from the heaviness on "Descent"). Perhaps the most interesting tracks, though, are the last two, "Resurrection" and "Timelessness". "Resurrection" features fast, eighties-rock-type guitar and soft vocals all the way through. Very cool. But, the most surprising of them all is "Timelessness", a soft, beautiful song with a string section. Yep, great album, almost all the way through (some songs I may have to listen to a bit to like more). As you probably already know, this is a concept album, and the storyline is great, it would make a killer movie. This is a bit different from their previous albums, but it's far from a sellout. This makes stuff from Korn and Limp Bizkit sound quite wimpy. Anyway, this album is very much recommended, I would also recommend "Demanufacture", it's probably even better than this (I wanted to buy it first, but this was the only one they had), but don't get "Soul of a New Machine" unless you like death metal type stuff. Oh, and make sure you get the version of this album that doesn't have "Cars", unless somehow you actually like that song. Well, that's about it. Buy this album, it is very heavy and very cool!

Having heard a few tracks from this album and liking them alot i went out and brought it. I had resnobly high expectations of this album and i wasnt dissapointed. Obsolete is a masterfully constructed tale of a not to distnat future where machines created by man are threating to make man obsolete and free speech and democracy are thing of the past. Each track tells part of the overall story which centers around the Edgecrusher and his fight for freedom. There are some great tracks on this album and Fear Factory show that they are multi dimensional by playing in various tempos and speeds something which many metal bands out there today seem to have trouble doing. Burton's soulfull voice comes out in the more placids tracks and builds some great atmosphere while in the harder songs he screams with the best of them. Showing again the ability of this band. My favourite track would probably be Edgecrusher but the whole albums great other highlights would probably be Decent, Securitron, Ressurection and Timelessness. Great stuff. Thanks guys for a great album. Rock on.

Make no mistake, my friends: this is NOT another baggy-pants, backwards baseball cap, "Yo Punk!" nu-metal album. This is heavy industrial METAL with a sci-fi story to back it up.

In a way, this CD would make a great soundtrack to the Terminator trilogy: cold, heartless, heavy, machine-laden music telling the story of the EDGECRUSHER: a cold, heartless, machine that was "percieved in hell beyond your depth of perception". My favorite songs on here include Shock, Edgecrusher, Smasher/Devourer (which describe the T-800 to a T), Securitron (Police State 2000), Resurrection, and Cars. Most of the songs on here are good, but there is a dud or two. But we'll all survive.

Burton's voice can go from beautiful singing to a deafening roar, Dino's guitar buzzes like a metal factory, Christian's bass gives the music backbone, and Raymond's double-bass kicks gives it more of an industrial edge. It makes for one hell of an album.

All in all, you need to have this one. Especially if NIN and Ministry are your ideas of ear candy.

FF has certainly lost something since the Demanufacture days. The songs are a bit less heavy, the guitar sounds mangled at times, and the programming element that made Demanufacture so good is almost gone. Some songs (most notably Obsolete) don't really even sound like they belong on the album. Still, with songs like Descent, Edgecrusher, and Freedom or Fire, this album is still a good buy. If you like hard metal though, stick with Demanufacture.

I remember when my friend in job corps used to play this album and so i asked to listen to it. I loved the song DESCENT and would play it every morning. I bought this cd in a pawn shop and listened to it non-stop. I especially love the melodic voice parts in the songs. The story reminds me of The Matrix! very weird. I think this is the best ROCK album I have ever owned. So if you like to headbang or just wanna chill then pick this disc up. You won't regret it.

Alot of people complain about the slight change that Fear Factory did in 1998 with their Obsolete album. True, it is more experimental than Demanufacture but FF is an extremely progressive band. Soul of a New Machine was straight hardcore death metal, and then they made the transition from that to the more industrial-metal driven Demanufacture. Obsolete is more of a continuation from that album. Songs like the opener "Shock" and the brutal "Edgecruser" lay down the line for this brilliant concept album based upon Man vs. Machine. The liner notes that go along with the lyrics in the booklet (all written by Singer Burton C. Bell) is simply brilliant. Even the more melodic songs like "Descent" and "Resurrection", which fades into the gloomy closer "Timelessness", which show off Bell's true vocal abilities becoming instant classics. As always guitar work is good even though Dino Cazeras wasn't really THAT impressive of a guitarist. All the guitars are wrapped around the killer drum beats on most songs, a trademark FF sound. Along with Bell, drummer Raymond Herra shines through as always on this cd, and they are in my opinion the most talented in FF. But if you are new to them I would highly suggest either this or Demanufacture. Digimortal was good but just doesn't do them enough justice as this cd does.

Ok, I just reviewed like 5 alternative albums in a row. I gotta get back into some metal now. This is just a brilliant concept album. Great music, great storyline, and the little blurbs in the booklet between lyrics are helpful. Fear Factory's music is difficult to describe. It's like some band in the distant future found some old thrash and death metal CD's, and decided to duplicate it in their futuristic fashion. The music is very innovative, and has a feel that seems beyond its time.

The guitar playing is really great. Dino doesn't do any fast shred solos or anything, but he's an awesome rhythm player. It's wrong to call him a "numetal guitarist" simply because he doesn't do solos. This guy has a mean right hand. Listen to the opening riffs of "Shock" and "Securitron", and you'll see what I mean. The songs here are heavy, vicious, and bloodthirsty. Burton's vocals are otherworldly. He doesn't even sound human, I would never imagine a mortal man could sing like that. Oh, and let's not forget about Ray Herrera. A monstrous drummer. Some of his beats are like jackhammer blasts meant to drive you into the ground. He does excellent double bass work, and he's got a lot of dexterity as well, as you will see in the title track and "Freedom or Fire".

There are some great ballads here amongst the heaviness as well. "Descent" has some great melodic guitarwork, "Resurrection" has a dynamite chorus, and "Timelessness" is a great mournful song to end it all. This album has but one flaw: "Edgecrusher". Way too numetal sounding. It doesn't fit at all, and it totally disrupts the flow of the album. Plus, the turntables are pointless, and don't belong here. They could have made a better theme for the good old Edgecrusher. This song makes him sound like a wrestler or something.

Other than that, this is a great album. And just so you know, it's not numetal. It's much heavier, more intelligent, and more complex. Not quite as good as "Demanufacture", but this is great, great stuff.

First off, great album. superb. excellent. stupendous. need i say more? okay sure, this is a concept album, but if you listen to the lyrics,(and read, you might get more pronunciation out of the words if you just read the lyrics) you'll find that some of them actually ring true to the current state of society. and some also ring true to what we NEED in the current society. Okay, down what you've been dreading the whole time; the track by track review. 1. Shock: nice, heavy song. sure there are heavier songs out there, but this is plenty heavy. Burton's up to his ol' vocal tricks during this song; i.e. growling for most of the song, but giving us that beautiful voice for the chorus. good song. 2. Edgecrusher: this is the track about our hero for the album. really good song, bordering on great. sadly though, no melodic singing. humph. anyway, the breakneck crunch of Dino's guitar and Ray's drums is broken up by the well timed "technical scratchings" of DJ Zodak. really good song. 3. Smasher/ Devourer: Okay song. cool chorus, though. wouldn't recommend buying the cd just for that song, as there are plenty of lovely tracks aside from it. okay song. 4. Securitron (Police State 2000): this is a song about the album's version of "Big Brother". The melodic chorus is back *yay!*. this is one of my personal favs on the album. great song. 5. Descent: some peeple like this, i personally find it too... alternative for me. i find it too lite for my tastes. oh well. you might enjoy it. peculiar song. 6. Hi-Tech Hate: Now here's a song about society. wow, great song. just the line of "we are losing, weapons controlling" is enough to make me like this song, but it has the melodic chorus so i have to give it credit for that. great song. 7. Freedom Or Fire: Pretty cool song. i find it kind of repetetive though. but it's a good song all around. 8. Obsolete: ah, here we are, the Title Track!! this is actually a great song, with a few minor drawbacks. The chorus, although growling, is actually really catchy. but the rest of the vocals could use some work. just a little bit of timing here and there and that would make this a really great song. 9. Ressurection: my personal favorite. okay, let me just say this: THE WHOLE F**IN' SONG IS IN THE MELODIC VOICE!!! *yay!* well, the last four lines in the song are growled, but it switches back to melodic on the last word. so... this is my favorite song on the 'bum so i think it's needless to say that i find it stupendous. 10 Timelessness: some peeple say that this song is too soft, seeing as it only has a band of string instruments (that's violins and the sort to you grease monkeys out there) and a sinth or two as instruments. but it's in the melodic voice, and actually a really, really good song. 11 Cars: for some reason, on the tracklisting up there at the top of the page, they didn't mention this track. oh well. anyway, wheh, did this one take me by suprise. this song has nothing to do with edgecrusher or his struggle to reclaim the hope for humanity. this is a remake of the Gary Numan song and it actually has Gary doing vocals with Burton. this song is very strange next to the rest of the album, but you'll love it. okay, just buy the album and stop reading reveiws. if you don't think for yourself once in a while, you won't get anywhere. plus, not only do you get the songs, but you get a short story. Burton has taken the time to write "Conception 5" which is comprised of little between song segments that tell you about the way the world is at that time, and advance the story onto the next song. So just buy the album!!!!

this cd is a very very good effort from fear factory. the writing is very well put out and the instruments are played very well. i personally favor the songs:"shock', "descent", "edgecrusher", "securitron", "high tech hate" and "resurrection". if you like this cd, i suggest static-x or even spineshank.

A fantastic development for Fear Factory. A concept album which tells the story of a future world, aggressive opening tracks `Shock' and `Edgecrusher' telling the tale of the fight against oppression culminating in the sad finale `Timelessness'. The story behind the fantastic tracks is an important one, technology does not replace spirituality. And `Ressurection' is one helluva track.