Digimortal, Fear Factory
- Paul Wong
- Courtesy of Road Runner Records
Roadrunner Records
Digimortal, the newest and most deadly of the Digimons? Sadly, for Digimon fans, the answer is “no,” but Digimortal is the name of the newest Fear Factory record.
Although concept albums have seemingly gone the way of the eight track, metal acts are single-handedly keeping them alive. Digimortal is the latest metal/science-fiction/concept album. Much in the same vein of “Terminator 2,” “The Matrix” and even Our Lady Peace”s Spiritual Machines, Fear Factory explores the marriage of man and machine and where this partnership will lead the human race in the future. It is a tale of immortality achieved through technology.
At some point in the future through the invention of the Eternachip, a chip installed in each humans cerebral cortex, all human memory and experience will be downloaded and saved in the eternasystem. While it would be tempting to just type blah blah blah from this point on, I will bear through all the exciting details.
At death the human will be cloned, then allowed to age for twenty-five years before the memory would be inserted. While the process seems to be perfect, it seems to miss one small detail, THE SOUL!(Gasp!).
Surprisingly enough the storyline doesn”t get any more exciting when it is screamed over detuned guitars and driving doublebass. The problem with a concept album is if the concept falls short of interesting so does the album. The grooves are machinelike but the quality is mortal. Pay your brother to scream over a B sci-fi movie, same effect, less cost.
Grade C-