Everything is awesome. Mean Gene is on the cover of Modern Drummer, he is still touring across Europe with Fear Factory alongside High on Fire, and the dude lost 60 pounds!

The Greek band has escaped my ears in their decade of existence, but now features the pants-shitting lineup of Gene Hoglan, Steve DiGiorgio, Chris Valagao, and Ralph Santolla backing up original member Ilias Papadakis. A decent demo is on their MySpace, which says they aim to bring “old school thrash metal with a modern touch”. Heard it a thousand times, yes, but if I was a betting man….

Rating: 4/5

Basically, the best thing ever happened to Fear Factory: Burton and Dino reconciled, and half of Strapping Young Lad was incorporated into the band’s strongest lineup to date. “Mechanize” easily rubs elbows with any of their definitive 90s output.

I tried to take as many pictures as possible with the camera before it died completely. You’ll notice an ever-so-slight difference in quality with the shots taken with my Blackberry Storm. I at least got a couple close-ups of the great Brendon Small, one of my heroes for so many reasons.