"there is a fear factory in this division". finally, someone proved sense over at music on vinyl and brought this sucker to its long deserved vinyl treatment. while nu metal ruled my playlist, "obsolete" was one of the few metal albums that found their way into my collection in the late nineties. i bought a cd copy on a whim in an appliance store's media section because i liked the cover art. when i brought it home i listened to it over and over again and i still know every second of the album. i always loved the dense atmosphere and its beautiful melody lines.
"obsolete" from 1998 is a scorcher on all accounts and therefore i did not waste a single second of thinking whether to get the recent vinyl pressing or not. i bought my copy on ebay. the seller was media markt and as they have stores all over germany, it was no problem to get it sent to my local store, save on shipping and pick it up. man, that record aged pretty good. back in the day i always thought of "hi-tech hate" and "freedom or fire" as inferior songs but now, especially the latter one slowly becomes my favourite of the record. the lyrical concept of a dystopian police state and its underground resistance is brilliant too.
of course the idea isn't really new. books like fahrenheit 451, 1984, comic books like v for vendetta or movies like blade runner go in a similar direction and it feels like burton c. bell took the best of them all. nevertheless the short story "conception 5" is so well written and the lyrics so fantastically tied in, it gives me the goosebumps every time i read along. the presentation is pretty cool. the artwork works well in vinyl format and the gold vinyl itself is a pretty good match. hopefully the rest of fear factory's roadrunner back catalogue will also be re-issued on vinyl by mov. 2000 copies made. music on vinyl. 2018.
post scriptum: "obsolete" is, i think, the only album of which i own a copy on all common formats. that speaks for itself. which one i might take for a listen today?
