Review by Adam M on June 30, 2025.

This album represented a new era for cybernetic metal and was a very interesting new breed of metal might.  This was a revolutionary album for groove metal and remains a distinctive and interesting piece of heavy metal history.  The industrial feel of the album is difficult to duplicate.

There is a great deal of solid musicianship to be found on the work and it has an interesting industrial feeling to it.  This is one of the top albums of the style and has a heavy degree of guitar usage backed up by solid drumming and an interesting vocal performance.

In terms of flaws, the album is perhaps not as catchy as Obsolete and more of an industrialized cacophony of sounds.  It is still quite powerful and will make an impact on you.  It is a tour de force of metal might and one of the strongest albums to be found in the groove metal style.

All in all, this was a very solid disc and one of the best the band has produced.  It is still interesting to this day with its cybernetic style.  Fans of Obsolete will like it as will those with a thirst for groove metal in general.

Rating: 7.6/10

Review by Michael on June 2, 2001.

WOW!!! That’s the first thing I thought upon hearing "Demanufacture". These guys are aggression personified!!!! The brutal combination of grinding guitars, sub-bass, ultra-kick drum work, industrial / techno style keyboard / synth and vocals that take your skin off... people, I welcome you to the ‘high tech’ world of Fear Factory.

This was the album that ‘unofficially’ brought Fear Factory into the Metal spotlight. And I wonder why? Every aspect of this album is brilliant. So good in fact that after hearing this CD Slayer attempted to poach drummer Raymond Herrera, but thankfully with no luck!! The man is a living metronome. I’ve heard double kick before, but never like he plays. He is literally like a drum machine, and before you ask…I’ve seen Fear Factory live 3 times and he plays every triple!!! From the power opening track "Demanufacture" to the fast "New Breed" and the emotionally charged "Pisschrist" it is brilliant and unforgettable. Fear Factory were one of the first (dare I say) ‘crossover’ metal bands to incorporate techno style samples and sounds with mean guitars. There have been many similar bands since, but none of them in my opinion are even close to the money. Their speed and control are incredible allowing for great attention to detail. The production is excellent. The drums are crisp, clear and well balanced in the mix, the guitars are huge and full of bottom end but also maintaining great clarity. The bass sits nicely with the guitars and does what it should do... adds bottom end and punch to the mix without sticking out like a sore thumb. Now the vocals. Burton C. Bell has a fantastic voice that moves effortlessly from low, distorted screamed vocals to fresh clean tone vocals, to chanting that would make a monk give up his day job!! Now, what can I say about the guitar lines... they are HEAVY! They really get the heart pumping at times with fast strumming, usually riding the kick drum, they can be crushingly heavy or can change in an instant to heartfelt chorus’ and outro’s. As most of you will know Dino is a big man, but his dexterity for what I would call ‘guitar double kick’ is quite amazing. Intertwined within all this are hundreds of small digital samples, keyboard loops and synth sound effects courtesy of Rhys Fulber. It is the controlled combination of all this chaos that gives Fear Factory the Number 1 spot in this area of metal.

Favourite Track(s)? I don’t know... it’s a really hard choice…. "Demanufacture", "H-K (Hunter Killer)" or "Pisschrist".

Bottom Line: This is an amazing album. If you don’t run out and buy this album after reading this review I think it's time to go to the bathroom, open the cupboard, and start taking those little pills that nice man at the hospital gave you!!!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Review by JD on December 30, 2010.

The former Soviet Block has been pumping out some momentously nasty metal since the Communists fell. It seems that these musicians go at it harder than most of the bands out there today. The former Communist satellites seem to breed music that is harsher and baleful than anywhere else. I am excited, to say the least.

Slovakia’s Typhoid explodes with some intense Brutal Death Metal that is out to fry what little brain matter you may or may not have left after all of these years of metal, and they do it rather well. Sounding like an amalgamation of bands like Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Necrophagist and Deeds Of Flesh, they hammer at you with intensely heavy and blatantly gory metal throughout this five track EP.

Three of the songs on this EP are originals, and they are pretty good, but their own originals were pretty straight forward and left me wondering what they were trying to do. Moving one, the two covers they have on here (by Dying Fetus and Autopsy) that are the better tracks they have offered up. They took these insane ‘extreme’ classic songs, and made them their own by adding in some of their own flavours. These songs were heavy and acidic in both form and function but payed respect to the original bands.

Typhoid plays some great metal, but need to work on some things when it comes to their own originals. I am not saying that these songs are bad, but they leave me with a sense that I have heard it all before. I have heard that on later releases, they did just that but on this album, they failed to impress. The EP is good, but there is nothing that really screams out for me to continue to listen.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship:8 (Great musicians)
Atmosphere: 5
Production: 7
Originality: 5.5
Overall: 6

Rating: 6.3 out of 10