Hot on the heels of the Creed reunion comes the news that original Fear Factory members Dino Cazares (guitar) and Burton C Bell (vocals) are working together again under the FF name and have announced appearances at this Summer's Sonisphere and Bloodstock UK festivals.
Strictly speaking, the man Vs machine-fixated band never actually split up so this is where it all gets slightly odd and confusing. We'll try and explain, here goes: the band disbanded in 2002 but reformed in the same year without Dino - but with bassist Christian Olde Wolbers (good name) moving to guitar duties and Byron Stroud being brought in on bass.
That line-up made two albums - 2004's Archetype and 2005's rather lacklustre Transgression - and then took a break. Meanwhile Dino Cazares formed the band Devine Heresy. Now Burton C Bell and Dino have rekindled their friendship and decided to work together again, with former Strapping Young Lad members Byron on bass and legendary metal drummer Gene Hoglan.
They've chosen to leave 'classic' Fear Factory line-up members Christian and drummer Raymond Herrera out of the equation as a result. And Dino was remaining cagey about that when he spoke to Metal Hammer:
“We won´t talk about it. Ha ha ha! It´s part of the organisation. We learned some things and we have a really good rapport with Byron, and Gene is an amazing drummer. Dino and I, as the founders of Fear Factory, we thought ‘Hey, let´s try this, a different flavour´. Because wherever me and Dino go, it´ll still be Fear Factory, I believe.”
Seems a bit harsh, and, as we said, confusing because now Christian and Raymond are using the material that they had intended to be for the next Fear Factory album in a new band called Arkaea (check out their Myspace here ) that also features Threat Signal members Jon Howard (vocals) and Pat Kavanagh (bass).
We told you it was confusing - but now it's going to be a case of who makes the best album. Because it's now a competition, of course.
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