Mechanize is a full-fisted blast of passion and innovation that sounds like the missing link between’s 1995’s groundbreaking Demanufacture and 1998’s more texturally nuanced Obsolete. Songs like “Industrial Discipline” and “Powershifter” are crushing and colossal, melding fast and precise rhythms with vocals that pinwheel from raw and scathing to hauntingly melodic while “Fear Campaign,” which features harrowing spoken word passages, quickly segues into a showcase of punishing beats, rapidfire riffs and ghostly keyboards. For the first time in years, the band’s industrial roots glimmer through its street-lethal metal, thanks in part to Fulber, who worked on Fear Factory’s popular industrial remix albums Fear is the Mindkiller and Remanufacture. While Mechanize is instantly reminiscent of Fear Factory’s most potent moments of discovery, it’s hardly a stroll down the old assembly line. Be it the orchestral keyboard swells of “Christploitation,” the keyboard-infused dirge of “Final Exit,” the taped screams and radio transmissions of “Controlled Demolition” or the last gasp-under-shattered-glass samples of “Metallic Division,” the combination of technological advancements and experience of Fear Factory have evolved like a computer virus, constantly reconfiguring itself to maximize its destructive impact.