Fear Factory, one of the leading bands of death-metal and one of the most experimental in adopting elements of industrial music, were formed in Los Angeles in 1990 by vocalist Burton Bell, percussionist Raymond Herrera, and guitarist Dino Cazares. The bleak soundscapes of Soul of a New Machine (Roadrunner, 1992) constitute the perfect manifesto for the cyberpunk generation. Thrashing, grinding beats often stop to let pure fear take over the nervous system. Songs evolve rather than just erupt. Fear Factory's horror goes beyond the physical and sounds therefore more radical. There is more to Fear Factory's hell than the cannibal growl of Leechmaster and Lifeblind. The armored charge of Scapegoat boasts a psychedelic melody that could be from the mid-1960s. Martyr (epic guitar spinning a monk's hymn) and Self Immolation (a seismic stop-and-go voodoobilly) are sermons drenched in pain, while Scumgrief, one of the most elaborate tracks, is a grand vision of incipient apocalypse. There is true, unrelenting desperation behind these bombshells.
Often, Bell's vocal transformations steal the show: Crisis is basically a duet between an angel and a monster, both played by the same actor.

Mind Killer (Roadrunner, 1993) are remixes by Rhys Fulber and Bill Leeb of Front Line Assembly.

Demanufacture (Roadrunner, 1995), with Rhys Fulber on keyboards, is the definitive statement of this genre. It is not only that Demanufacture and especially New Breed are devastatingly ferocious, frontal head-banging, continuously changing and enhanced with gothic touches: they are also "terminal", in an absolute and apocalyptic way. Self Bias Resistor even soars with a magniloquent Helloween-style hymn. Zero Signal floats in abysmal depths before launching in a feverish dance, a sort of voodoobilly for mechanical beings, flogged by electronics before soaring in another anthemic stanza. Pisschrist maintains their status as devils of super-fast music with machine-gun guitars and panzer-grade drums, but the grueling massacre ends with a sort of galactic funeral.
Flashpoint sets an industrial beat against a wall of distortion and then skins a growling beast. The emphatic, keyboards-heavy H-K is Crimson King for the death-metal generation. The closing, nine-minute A Therapy For Pain is a lugubrious mantra that sinks in a chaos of sparse distortions. The music seems to come from another world, saturated with blaspheme truths about this world.
The band's eclecticism pays off. The vocalist can shift from rapper's angry to operatic majesty to hell's victim's agony (as he does in Replica).
Dog Day Sunrise even flirts with dance music. thanks to a less manic beat, a stubborn guitar riff, and harmonies that resemble a gregorian choir.
This is the "biggest" sound a death-metal band ever produced.

Remanufacture are remixes by a number of remixers, including the new single Burn.

The sci-fi concept album Obsolete (RoadRunner, 1998), produced by Rhys Fulber, is vastly inferior to both previous works. While the lead-off Shock and Hi-Tech Hate hark back to Demanufacture's standard of pummeling riffs and icy melodies, Timelessness (with the orchestra) and the catchy Resurrection search for new directions. But it is hard not to name Edgecrusher and Securitron, the most brutal (and therefore "traditional") songs, as the highlights of the album.

Digimortal (RoadRunner, 2001) continues the descent towards mainstream rock with Invisible Wounds, Digimortal, Never End, Damaged. At least Linchpin has a memorable melody. The opener What Will Become and No One offer a bridge with the past, but what a shaky bridge that is.

Brujeria is Cazares and Herrera's side project. Brujeria's death-metal and grindcore language is vastly degraded on the EP Machetazos (Alternative Tentacles, 1993). The album Matando Gueros (Roadrunner, 1993) is a milestone of sick, blasphemous, horror metal. Raza Odiada (Roadrunner, 1995) is a more political statement, that occasionally reminds one of hardcore punk-rock bands like MDC and Dead Kennedys.

Psycho-guitarist Dino Cazares left Fear Factory to concentrate on his band Divine Heresy, that released Bleed the Fifth (2007) and Bringer of Plagues (2009). Fear Factory continued without Cazares with the mediocre Archetyppe (Liquidi 8, 2004) and Transgression (2005). Then bassist Christian Olde-Wolbers and drummer Ray Herrera left Fear Factory to form Arkaea, and Cazares returned with a new rhythm section on Mechanize (2010).