back in the late nineties i was all over new metal. korn, limp bizkit or coal chamber were on my daily playlist. also a few hardcore and metal bands made their way into my discman. stuff like biohazard, sick of it all or fear factory. especially after i bought a cd copy of fear factory's 1998 mammoth release 'obsolete' it was pretty much on heavy rotation. i absorbed this album and to me it aged extremely well. i stll love every tune and feel like i appreciate it even more now than back then.
the follow-up 'digimortal' couldn't hold up to the greatness that was 'obsolete' and after the band lost its musical mastermind in the shape of dino cazares, i lost them completely. back then i even had a copy of 'archetype' but found it somewhat dull and sold it somewhere along the way. after the band's hiatus until 2010 i couldn't care less for their releases. in 2010 dino cazares returned and 'mechanize' was unleashed.
i heard a few songs but i was pretty underwhelmed and i completely denied 'the industrialist' because they used a drum computer for all songs. call me old-fashioned but i think that sucks. when 'genexus' dropped in 2015 i wasn't too enthusiastic about the release but still a bit interested. i checked a few songs here and there and thought they were pretty good. especially the blade runner samples were right up my alley. it still took me until this year to finally order it. the limited colour-ways were still available and so i grabbed a copy.
now that i have it, i listen to it every day. 'genexus' is, apart from those useless bonus tracks on the d-side, flawless. not one stinker. i pretty much feel like back in the day listening to 'obsolete' and standing in awe because of its fantastic mixture between heaviness and epic melodies. the record comes in a gatefold sleeve, with a foldable insert with all lyrics and with horrible artwork all around. the vinyl itself is pressed on a nice lilac colour. unfortunately it looks way more blue in the pictures than in reality. 200 copies made. nuclear blast. 2015.
