Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares spoke with Duane James of Australia’s Wall of Sound about the band’s upcoming studio album, tentatively due in late 2026 or early 2027 via Nuclear Blast. The record will mark Fear Factory‘s first release with singer Milo Silvestro and drummer Pete Webber, who have been part of the band’s touring lineup for more than three years.
Asked whether there is a release date yet, Cazares told Wall of Sound (transcribed by Blabbermouth): “I don’t have a date when the whole record’s coming out, but we will be releasing a single soon. I know I’ve said it over the years, but for real, it’s gonna be coming out this year as far as the first single. Actually, more than one single will be out this year.”
On whether he worries about how the Fear Factory fanbase will receive music with Silvestro at the front, Cazares said: “Nah. What does it mean anymore? It doesn’t mean anything anymore. As long as you believe in what you’re doing, and you 100% love it, it doesn’t matter what anybody says. It comes down to how you feel. And I feel it’s gonna be a classic. Now, if people don’t like it, I don’t know what to tell them. That’s their problem. But I 100% believe that people are gonna love this shit, ’cause it’s new, it’s brutal, it’s heavy, it’s melodic. [There are] beautiful moments on the record. It’s everything that makes Fear Factory a Fear Factory record. And we’re talking about Obsolete and Demanufacture, but this is going to a different place than some of the older classic stuff. This is going to a different place, and the place that it’s gone to is newer, it’s fresher, it sounds modern, it sounds where we are now in this genre of music. And also, a bit forward-thinking as well.”
The album stays true to the man-versus-machine concept that has defined Fear Factory‘s catalog since the early 1990s. Cazares said: “Conceptually it’s about… It’s always been about the relationship between man and machine and where we are. And obviously, technology has caught up to some of the stuff that we have been talking about over the years on our records. Now, it’s like we’re talking about the next 50 years from now, where we’re gonna be at with this technology. And, of course, everybody’s got this A.I. bug in them, and we’re definitely capitalizing on a lot of our concepts that we came up over the years. And we always felt that we were ahead of the game when it came to that kind of stuff, with a lot of warnings. Especially Obsolete, where we were talking about how a lot of things were gonna become obsolete. Which is true, but not only did they become obsolete, we, as a human species, have learned how to adapt to this, and I think that’s exactly what’s happening. We put out a remix record a couple years ago called Recoded, and the intro said, ‘You adapt or die.’ And that’s it. You have to adapt to where technology is going or you’re gonna get left behind.”
