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Fear Factory is an American heavy metal band that was formed in 1989. Throughout the band's career, they have released nine full-length albums and have evolved through a succession of styles, including nu metal, death metal, groove metal, and thrash metal. Fear Factory was enormously influential on the heavy metal scene in the mid-to-late 1990s. Fear Factory went on hold in March 2002 following some internal disputes, but re-formed a year later without founding member Dino Cazares, adding bassist Byron Stroud, and previous bassist Christian Olde Wolbers as guitarist.

Fear Factory was formed in 1989 under the name Ulceration, which the band agreed would "just be a cool name". In 1990, the name "Fear Factory" was adopted to reflect the band's new death metal sound, which was influenced by early British industrial metal, industrial music, and grindcore yet remained rooted in a conservative extreme metal approach; a facet of the band's music that resulted in its wider music audience appeal. The band's origins can be traced to an outfit formed by guitarist Dino Cazares--formerly of The Douche Lords--and drummer Raymond Herrera in Los Angeles, California. Their first lineup was completed with the addition of bassist Dave Gibney and vocalist Burton C. Bell (ex-Hate Face), who was allegedly recruited by an impressed Cazares, who overheard him singing "New Year's Day" by U2. Cazares played bass on the first three Fear Factory albums Concrete, Soul of a New Machine and Demanufacture, on which Cazares changed many of the riffs during the recording. It took Cazares two weeks to get the appropriate guitar tone. Cazares created, wrote and recorded all the music on the album. Wolbers joined the band two weeks before they were scheduled to go on tour to promote the album and, although he contributed musical changes to a couple of songs on the album he stated that these were not significant. Fear Factory's earliest demo recordings are strongly reminiscent of the early works of Napalm Death and Godflesh, an acknowledged influence of the band in the grindcore-driven approach of the former and the mechanical brutality, bleakness, and vocal stylings of the latter. According to Brian Russ of The BNR Metal Pages, the demos are remarkable for integrating these influences into the band's death metal sound and for Burton C. Bell's pioneering fusion of extreme death growls and clean vocals in the same song, which was to become a significant and influential element of the band's sound throughout their career. The use of grunts and "throat singing" combined with clean vocals later defined the nu metal and other emerging subgenres of metal. Many vocalists in today's metal scene use two or more methods of singing and vocalizing lyrics. The band contributed two songs to the L.A. Death Metal Compilation in 1990. The band played its first show on October 31, 1990.
Fear Factory