First release from a band that credits Fear Factory’s Demanufacture as their primary influence. And since they’re pals of Fear Factory, they’ve been catapulted into the extreme doom metal spotlight. They perform quite well under such pressure, well enough to cover The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” That takes balls. So, what I feared would be a pretentious extreme take on a great song, amazed me. They kept all the melody! It’s totally industrial, but the vocals and guitars keep the George Harrison feel to the song. Far freakin’ out, man!
Strictly diesel is pretty much divided along two lines, you have the brutal, aggressive industrial death metal, featured on songs like “Where We Fall,” “Intake” and “If It Breathes;” then there’s the very industrial and electronic sound of songs like “40 Below,” “Strictly Diesel” and “Grey.” It’s as if half the time they felt like inciting riots with their calls to arms and the other half they just wanted to mess around with machinery and electric gadgets. Either way, this is a pretty impressive first release.
