No more Goddamn regrets? An absolute landmark genre defining savage and brutal metal masterpiece  -  the metal album of this or any other year. But a terrible, atrocious reissue in an age of record company greed....

In the age of Slipknots and Lacuna Coil, its easy to overlook Fear Factory. Having burst into the metal mainstream out of their early death metal niche with 1995's cyber classic Demanufacture, ever since then that album has laid a shadow long and tall over subsequent releases - seemingly ever in decline, they may never reach the height of that perfectly formed album.When released, it was a landmark album; a quantum leap from previous material, practically inventing the cybermetal genre. It wasn't cutting edge, it was bleeing edge metal - razor sharp, perfectly defined, mechanically precise, and an instant classic. Even now, the original album sounds like nothing else on earth - sleek, defined, clinical yet savagely precise.

From the opening "Demanufacture" to the closing epic "A Therapy For Pain", the album never overstays its welcome, being full of light and shade, being both savage and subtle, layered with aural textures the likes of which no one else at the time came close to. Despite its incessantly, unrelentingly heaviosity, the album still locks into a clincally precise almost dance-techno groove, using the guitars in line with the drums in a way that no one else ever had to date, or since.

In the booklet, one of those involved says "This was our Reign in blood, our Master Of Puppets..." and yes, it does deserve those plaudits. in 1995, the metal scene nu-metal warriors were Pantera, and Machine Head - purveyors of a highly refined yet brutal sound, and on "Demanufacture" Fear Factory took that sound and gave it a complete re-invention, adding depths which you hadn't thought possible. Quite frankly, it was the metal album of the year, and still stands head and shoulders above most releases nowadays, still sounding up to date and futuristic.

But One thing you can always tell with Roadrunner is their seemingly endless multitude of re-issues, re-releases, and excessive over formatting; over and over again, the same albums get pumped out into the shops with extra tracks by the bucketload.The most recent rend is to 'remaster' the albums and re-issue them with bonus tracks - a good idea in theory, but in practice, this one has turned out to be a massive mis-step.Whilst it presents damn good value for money - some 33 tracks on two discs totalling 155 minutes long- but its a far inferior product to the original release.

Lets see what you get for your money - The first CD is the original album plus a few bonus tracks from the digipak edition and import editions ; the second disc is the 1997 remix album "Remanufacture" album where it was re-tooled by obscure dance DJs into a Bigbeat / chemical generation manner, plus a few more remixes used on B-Sides. 

The bad news is this: Everything that made the album a quantum leap ahead has been lost in this remaster,to make it sound more contemporary. It sounds terrible - The remaster has been Re-EQ'd, and sounds horrendous. The guitars are all muddy and sludgy, rather than supersharp as they were before. As Monte Connor writes in the liner notes; "A lot of bands had that the same tinny, bright sound - When we remastered the deluxe edition, we worked really hard on adding in the thickness and the low end that has been missing. you'll really hear the difference".

Yes, you'll hear the difference, and not in a good way. Whats happened is that , this genre defining record that sold a shedload of records because of its unqiue sound... has had its sound changed to fit in with everything else, with current trends by the A&R guy at the record company.

What was sharp and precise and clear now sounds muddled, and distorted, and indistinguishable. The problem here is that the low end on the guitar is raised up in the mix - into exactly the same frequencies already covered by the bass. So the audio range is in fact compressed ; swamped. There's very little in the 4K-6K range in the remaster - a range that is very rarely used in heavy or industrial metal , and is EXACTLY the range that makes this album  stand out from the rest of the crowd.  Instead what you get is all the guitars mixed down in the equaliser to fit in with current trends, an act of historical and musical revisionism that is completely counterproductive. Instead, you lose the clearly defined dynamic between the guitars and bass.

Now, the 1995 original is one where I've never heard a record quite so clearly mixed - it is this clearly defined seperation which makes the original sound light years ahead of the pack even now. In the remaster, the guitars are now in the same audible range as the bass to the point where  it swamps the bass completely. What this does is make the record sound terribly muddy, swamped, and unclear. In no way at all, is this an improvement - it reduces the audio quality significantly. Its like macrovision for metal. Its like watching a digital shot movie on a 7" LCD screen, and pretending its the way the director always wanted it to be. its like smearing the camera with vaseline, or deliberately blurring the screen and claiming its a decision to get a contemporary romanticised 'soft focus' look.

Sure - its great value, but a noticeably inferior product. Artisically speaking, its revisionist and muddies the waters - its up there with Greedo shoots first. As for the bonus tracks, its also telling porkies.

Firstly, none of the bonus tracks (all previously released) are identified as to where they were originally issued. So If you want to know where 'Manic Cure' first surfaced (its on the Gabber mixes 12" from records, incidentally), you'll be hoping.

Secondly, there's a lot of missing tracks. Six, in total.

Importantly, You can't dispense with the originals of either album for a multitude of reasons. Here they are -
i) Disc One ('Demanufacture') has been remixed into a sludgy mess (For best comparison, compare the US and UK mixes of Whitesnakes 1983 album, for a similar scenario), and is missing tracks on the original import digipak version.
ii)There's an exclusive mix of 'Remanufacture' on the original remix album of the same name missing on this reissue.
iii)These releases are missing two other remixes too; the 'Steel Gun' mix of New Breed from the Gabber mixes 12".And the version of 'Dog Day Sunrise' from the long deleted CD single of the same name.
iv)its missing the two exclusive original Colin Richardson mixes from the 'Hatefiles' compilation.
v)Similarly, they say that one track (the 'Electric Sheep' mix of Replica) couldn't fit on the disc - but thats blatant bullshit, because disc one runs to 75:36, and that track missing due to time constraints is 3m56s. Now, you can produce cds up to 79m59s longs, and adding that track would add the running time up to 79m32s. So Why the bullshit excuse, guys?

A far better solution would be to bung all the 16 or so bonus tracks from this era onto a second disc, rather than using the second disc to repackage existing material that is extremely easily available already on an album already -  as is the case with duplicating The 'Remanufacture' CD here.For example, the 4 tracks from the Demanufacture digipak edition, the 3 tracks from the 'Dog Day Sunrise single, the 4 tracks from the Gabber mixes 12" EP on and the tracks from the 'Burn' single. Easy, peasy and far better for the existing fans who made the record, and the record company, so much money in the first place.

Don't piss on your fans, guys - especially as the only way to get most of these missing tracks is on records that have been unavailable for over a decade (such as the Dog Day Sunrise CD single) or on a CD that was covermounted with  Kerrang! for one week over a decade ago. Ludicrous.

Its Essential for completists simply because of the 9 bonus tracks, but those 9 tracks alone do not justify the full retail price, but you won't be returning to it for musical value. You'll listen to the far superior, original mix instead.Please, stick to the original, and ignore this terribly mastered , terrible sounding, piece of record company cash in.

And why do I say that? Despite the fact its a genre defining classic, if you buy, you'll be sending a message to the record company. the message is that we support, and endorse, you screwing around with us to cash in on current trends, and will buy any old shite you put out. Treat us badly, and we will love you for it.  Please, jump on the trend bandwagon of 'phat' sounding records, rather than how the band wanted and intended them to sound all along, just to flog a precious few copies to the sheep who never caught up with it first time around, or how the band intended.  After all, the original mix by Colin Richardson - swamped with guitars like this - was rejected by the band for exactly that reason; so whats the point in remixing it into somtheing the band don't like? no point at all.

Brilliant album. Terrible remaster, poorly executed and unneccessarily incomplete. its a prime example in how to make a once brilliant record sound like a pile of audio sludge.

10/10 for the songs and music, 0/10 for the remaster. An atrocious treatment of a classic. Avoid.

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