The story behind Fear Factory's landmark album Obsolete
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Fear Factory’s Obsolete is more than a classic industrial metal album—it is a dystopian concept record that pushed the band’s man-versus-machine vision to its breaking point. Released in 1998, Obsolete followed the landmark Demanufacture and introduced “Conception 5,” Burton C. Bell’s story of a future where humanity has been deemed obsolete by the technology it created.
Set in the year 2076, the album follows Edgecrusher, a human dissident battling Securitron, a machine-controlled police state that regulates thought, crushes individuality, and treats human beings as disposable. Across songs like “Shock,” “Edgecrusher,” “Smasher/Devourer,” “Securitron (Police State 2000),” “Descent,” “Hi-Tech Hate,” “Freedom or Fire,” “Obsolete,” “Resurrection,” and “Timelessness,” Fear Factory turn their industrial-metal sound into a full-scale science-fiction nightmare.
This video explores the complete story behind Fear Factory’s Obsolete: the meaning of Conception 5, the fate of Edgecrusher, the role of Securitron and Smasher/Devourer, and why the album’s ending remains more ambiguous than many listeners realize. Was the resistance truly crushed—or did “Resurrection” and “Timelessness” leave behind a final spark of human defiance?
We also look at the album’s origins, including Burton C. Bell’s dystopian inspirations, Fear Factory’s evolution from the death-metal chaos of Soul of a New Machine to the cyber-metal precision of Demanufacture, and the way Dino Cazares, Raymond Herrera, Christian Olde Wolbers, and Bell built one of the defining industrial metal records of the 1990s. From the machine-gun riffs and programmed textures to Bell’s trademark collision of harsh screams and soaring clean vocals, Obsolete made Fear Factory sound colder, heavier, and more cinematic than ever.
Featuring the hit cover of Gary Numan’s “Cars,” plus fan favorites “Edgecrusher,” “Descent,” and “Resurrection,” Obsolete remains essential listening for fans of industrial metal, cyber metal, groove metal, science-fiction concept albums, and the darker side of late-1990s heavy music.
If you love Fear Factory, Demanufacture, Burton C. Bell, Dino Cazares, industrial metal history, metal concept albums, and the untold stories behind rock and metal’s most important records
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