Fear Factory @ The Gov, Adelaide 21/5/2026
The future is always hurtling towards us. Yet, history often repeats itself. The first time I saw Fear Factory was thirty years ago at Donington ‘96 in the UK, and my first written piece ten years ago, at HQ in Adelaide on the Demanufacture twentieth anniversary tour. Now they are back and with a new chapter in their own history soon to be released. New singer, new future, same dystopian metal barrage of sonic ecstasy.
While we await the launch of new music, founder Dino Cazares’ new sound man is Milo Silvestro, who admittedly has been the dry lung vocal martyr in the band for three years now, making these songs truly his own. Tonight, we get a performance that runs through the whole catalogue. Well, most anyway.
Judging by the setlist in Perth, we are going to hear some songs we’ve not heard in a while, and some we probably shouldn’t have heard too, however with Silvestro on vocals there are high hopes this is going to be a redemptive and special night for many.
Opening with the twenty fifth birthday child album of Digimortal’s opening track What Will Become, the band that is Fear Factory sound as clean as ever. Refined, sharp, electric. Pete Webber on drums is monstrous, Cazares on guitar a skilled assassin of combustible riffing.
Fear Factory do not mess around. Moving into Slave Labor, a deep cut from an album Cazares – in fact, no one on stage- was on, surprised however shows the chops the band have, the respect for their audience and the tenacity to make it sound better than ever before. A feat only surpassed when Archetype, a notoriously difficult song to land, is brought home by Silvestro’s composed style perfectly. These songs have never sounded this good live before. The infection has truly been removed.
I won’t run through the setlist individually, however, do know that if you’re a die hard, you’ll love it. If you’re a casual, you’ll also love it. A run through the more recent album tracks working backwards means the full history of the band is performed with one album missing. No prizes for guessing which album. Each song though is furious and lauded by the crowd before the setlist lands in the ‘classic’ era.
Shock, Edgecrusher and Securitron (Police State 2000) sound just as amazing as when this reviewer was nineteen and listening for the first time however it’s Descent, a slower melancholy song off album Obsolete, that always failed live, that I’m apprehensive about. Not tonight though. Those long harmonious notes that make the song, Silvestro delivers on a golden platter, and this reviewer is a tad emotional.
Linchpin is raucous, Scumgrief as fresh as newly baked bread before the Demanufacture set slices through us all like a T-800 to bring us home. A cheeky bonus track, to trip the lazy setlist watching reviewers, is a rare cover of Cars, performed before the night ends with Final Exit.
Fear Factory have always been visionaries, maybe too much so at times, however tonight’s set shows just how important, and influential, they are to music today. Whether 1991 or 2026, there are few bands that evolve and stay one step closer to the future than them. Crisp, clean and cutting, this new incarnation of Fear Factory is everything we’ve desired for so long. Their future cannot come soon enough.
Live Review By Iain McCallum