Fear Factory -- Obsolete

9/10

As a seventeen-year old in the summer of good old 1999, I...shoot, I'm not sure where I was going with that sentence. Ramble instead? When I was seventeen, I thought that I had cancer and would die before the end of the year. It turns out that the greatest threat to my existence was worrying myself to death. Early in the year, after suffering some immense pain and embarrassing bleeding, I discovered a large cyst in an unpleasant place. Being seventeen, I immediately assumed the cyst was a cancer-loaded tumor. Also being seventeen, I decided that I would tell no one and that when I died at the end of the year, my autopsy would reveal that I had been hiding a deadly secret. People would say I was brave for not worrying all my loved ones or some nonsense...whatever the case, that didn't happen. The cyst got so bad that fall, it ruptured in the middle of class (good old senior year), and I bled through my clothes. Let's just say my parents weren't exactly happy that I had been keeping the whole thing on the DL, but after they forced me to go to the doctor, I received the pleasant news that I had a large, nasty, but easily removable cyst growing out of my tailbone. Pleasant news because the answer to my repeated question, "So, Doc, are you sure I'm not going to die?" was repeatedly answered with, "No!" and an unsaid, "You need help, kid." Anyway, as great as that news was, my crazy, seventeen-year-old personage had already prepared itself for death. I was ready to go at anytime, and strangely, I was happy. The enjoyment I received from drinking hot soda and listening to new music in my car during my Winn-Dixie lunch breaks was most likely equitable to what some rich person gets testing out a new Lexus or whatever rich people drive now. I took every new experience, no matter how minute, as an incredible, invigorating gift. I had never heard music where some guy screamed and sang in the same song, and I had never heard a band mix weird electronic and orchestral music with metal before. So when KLSU graced my ears with Fear Factory's "Resurrection" that summer, I drove my '96 Thunderbird deep into the False River Road night like it was some kind of really fancy car that I don't know the name of because I don't give a crap about cars, even though I've vaguely mentioned them in the past two paragraphs for some reason.

The triumphantly fatalistic tone of this song really hit home with me too, considering what I was going through. Thankfully, the rest of the album was great! Throw in a chunky CD booklet with art by Dave McKean (yes, that Dave McKean!) and a track-by-track screenplay detailing the album's plot, a robots taking over the Earth sci-fi story that predates the Matrix, and shoot, you've got a late 90's teenage male's dream album. And hey, it's still fun to listen to now! Go 90's! Still glad to be alive in whatever year this is now, though. Get off my lawn.

1998 Roadrunner
1. Shock 4:58
2. Edgecrusher 3:39
3. Smasher/Devourer 5:34
4. Securitron (Police State 2000) 5:47
5. Descent 4:36
6. Hi-Tech Hate 4:33
7. Freedom or Fire 5:11
8. Obsolete 3:51
9. Resurrection 6:35
10. Timelessness 4:08