''Transgression'' is the sixth studio album by American heavy metal band

Fear Factory Fear Factory is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1989. Throughout the band's career, they have released ten full-length albums and have evolved through a succession of sounds, all in their main style of industrial metal. ...

. It was released on August 22, 2005 through Calvin Records. Guest appearances include

Billy Gould William David Gould (born April 24, 1963 in Los Angeles, California) is an American musician and producer. He is best known as the bassist of Faith No More. Biography Early years Billy said he is of Hungarian descent from his father's side. ...

, the bassist of

Faith No More Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1979. Before settling on the current name in July 1983, the band performed under the names Sharp Young Men and later Faith No Man. Bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist/r ...

, and

Lamb of God Lamb of God ( el, Ἀμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, Amnòs toû Theoû; la, Agnus Dei, ) is a title for Jesus that appears in the Gospel of John. It appears at John 1:29, where John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims, "Behold the Lamb of God wh ...

guitarist Mark Morton, who co-wrote the song "New Promise". The album was released as an

enhanced CD Enhanced CD is a certification mark of the Recording Industry Association of America for various technologies that combine audio and computer data for use in both Compact Disc and CD-ROM players. Formats that fall under the "enhanced CD" ca ...

with access to the exclusive Fear Factory website. It was also released as an enhanced

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with the

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

side featuring the whole album in (48,000 kHz), music videos and "The Making of Transgression" video. One could also retrieve another bonus track, entitled "My Grave", by putting the CD into the computer and clicking the 'Music' section at the special website. ''Transgression'' is the last album to feature original drummer

Raymond Herrera Raymond Herrera is an American musician and entrepreneur, best known as the former drummer and founding member of the heavy metal band Fear Factory. He is the former drummer for his previous band Brujeria and for industrial metal band Arkaea. He ...

and bassist/guitarist

Christian Olde Wolbers Christian Olde Wolbers (born 5 August 1972) is a Belgian musician, songwriter, and producer who is the bassist and backing vocalist of the heavy metal band Powerflo. He is the former bassist, guitarist and backing vocalist of the heavy metal b ...

who both parted ways with the band in April 2009 after original guitarist

Dino Cazares Dino Cazares (born in 1966) is an American musician, known for being the guitarist and one of the co-founders of industrial metal band Fear Factory. He is also the co-founder of the metal bands Divine Heresy, Asesino, and Brujeria. Cazares popu ...

returned to the band. ''Transgression'' was the first CD Fear Factory recorded since ''Soul of a New Machine'' without Rhys Fulber's input. "Moment of Impact" had a music video which found moderate airplay. The song "Transgression" was used in a scene from the 2007 thriller film '' Mr. Brooks''. This is the first Fear Factory album to include guitar solos, with the songs "Echo of my Scream" and "New Promise" featuring one each.

Reception

The album was met with mixed to negative reviews from both critics and fans. Many have cited the downpoint of the album being the poor production and in contrast to the band's previous albums. Additionally, while other albums had a more clean and industrial styled sound, Transgression has a more raw and less polished production style with most of the industrial elements being less prominent in the albums mix or removed completely. Guitarist

has stated that it was hard to have a producer do everything, where usually they are more involved with the people that they work with. Because of this the album has a different mix, a different sound to it than the previous ones. He described this album as "half way finished" and also said that he had to walk out of the studio because he wasn't happy with his guitar sound. Wolbers stated that the band was disappointed with the album due to its hurried finish due to demands from the band's label. This also accounts for the

cover song In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song released ...

s. Had the band had more time to finish the record, more tracks would have been included, and the album overall would have sounded better. 18 songs were recorded during the Transgression sessions, with five that have yet to be released. Two of them are "Ammunition" and a cover of Godflesh's "Anthem". In 2013, Christian Olde Wolbers via his

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page revealed more details regarding writing\recording ''Transgression'' and ''

Archetype The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ot ...

'': In 2016, ''

Metal Hammer ''Metal Hammer'' is a heavy metal music magazine and website founded in 1983, published in the United Kingdom by Future, with other language editions available in numerous other countries. ''Metal Hammer'' features news, reviews and long-form ...

'' named ''Transgression'' as Fear Factory's worst album.

Track listing

Song meanings

The title "540,000 Degrees Fahrenheit" refers to the heat in the middle of a

Thermonuclear weapon A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...

explosion. The lyrics go into detail about the destruction wrought upon the body brought about by such an explosion, with the chorus lamenting the potential loss of life that may be caused by one of these devices if it was ever to be used. The title is actually a conversion of 300 000 °C.

Credits

Fear Factory

Burton C. Bell Burton Christopher Bell (born February 19, 1969) is an American musician and vocalist. He is best known as the co-founder and former frontman of the metal band Fear Factory. Until 2021 he was the only member to perform on all of the band's album ...

– vocals ("Vox Martyr Automata"), effects ("Comprehensive Supervision"); engineering *

– guitars ("Visceral Pentatonic Resonance"), bass ("Intrinsic Low End Converge"); arrangements ("Hypermutation of Musical Arrangements") *

– drums ("Systematic Battery"); arrangements ("Hypermutation of Musical Arrangements"), engineering *

Byron Stroud Byron Stroud (born February 12, 1969) is a Canadian bassist. He is the former bassist for metal bands Fear Factory, Imonolith and Strapping Young Lad, current bassist for metal bands City of Fire and Zimmers Hole, and studio bassist for 3 Inc ...

– bass* (*credited as a band member but does not perform on the album)

Additional personnel

*Reggie Boyd – production assistant *Tom Jermann – visual design *

Toby Wright Toby Wright is an American record producer and mixing engineer who has worked with artists such as Alice in Chains, Metallica, Sevendust and Korn. Credits Producer * 3rd Strike - '' Lost Angel'' *8stops7 - ''In Moderation'' *Alice in Chains - ...

– producer, engineer, mixing *Stephen Marcussen – mastering *James Musshorn – assistant engineer *Matt Prine – editing, visual direction *Shaun Thingvold – engineer *Chad Michael Ward – still pictures *

Ben Templesmith Ben Templesmith (born 7 March 1984) is an Australian comic book artist best known for his work in the American comic book industry, most notably the Image Comics series ''Fell (comics), Fell'', with writer Warren Ellis, and IDW Publishing, IDW's ...

– cover artwork *

Steve Tushar Steve Tushar is an American Latin Grammy nominated record producer/remixer and musician. He has been a keyboardist, remixer, programmer and producer for metal band Fear Factory, record producer for Beto Cuevas and Chroma Key, and keyboard player fo ...

– engineer, design, effects ("Design Strategies For Spectral Ambience") *Paul Lawler – sound designer ("Additional Textured Compensation") (4 & 6) *

– bass (Special Bass Enhancement) (6 & 7) *Russell Ali – additional guitar (7)

Charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Transgression (Album) Fear Factory albums 2005 albums Albums produced by Toby Wright