Fear Factory Concrete (Remastered; Gun Metal Grey)

This 2002 album was the last of L.A. band Fear Factory’s amazing run of albums for the Roadrunner Records, but it was actually the first. Huh? Let us explain—or better yet, you can read the two sets of liner notes that accompany the package. Briefly, prior to signing with Roadrunner, Fear Factory recorded an entire album in 1990 with producer Ross Robinson. The band and Robinson had a falling out, but, ironically, it was a cassette recording of that album that got them signed to Roadrunner. Once Fear Factory blew up with the release of 1995’s Demanufacture, Roadrunner acquired the rights to the album from Robinson, but waited to release it until 2002, when the band went on hiatus and left the label. But more interesting than the story behind the music is the music itself. For Fear Factory fans, Concrete is an absolute treasure trove—half of the songs are new, while the other half showed up in rerecorded form on their debut album Soul of a New Machine (and especially sharp-eared Fear Factory fans will notice bits and pieces of the new songs that showed up on subsequent albums). Above all, though, Concrete sets it in stone that very early on, Fear Factory had perfected the heavy verse-melodic chorus formula followed by so many nu-metal bands to come. For its first-ever LP release, we’ve remastered Concrete for its pressing in gun metal grey vinyl. An essential piece of the Fear Factory legacy!