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by Goth Brooks
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The latest I’ve heard is that Zack has quit Rage Against the Machine and that the rest of the band plans to continue making music as RATM.  My advice to Timbo, Tom Morello, and Brad Wilk would be to put FACTORY 81 vocalist Nathan Wallace in the vacant slot.  I’m willing to bet that if the offer ever came his way that he’d probably decline quicker than lesser vocalists would accept a choice opportunity like that.  What Nathan Wallace has with his own band Factory 81 is a hefty slice of hardcore pie, with unusual and unexpected aspects thrown in the mix that aren’t being utilized by many other bands on the scene at the moment.  Nathan does chant and Nathan does indeed come off as the Spiritually guided Zen Master more than any Emo-Core vocalist you may have ever heard.  The spiritual aspect is all in the writing, because his delivery is an all out aggression session unlike anybody considered spiritual, or at peace with ones self.

The influences I hear coming from these native sons of Detroit are coming from their musical peers, their personal journeys into spirituality, as well as the life experiences and worldly views of vocalist Nate Wallace, who writes all of Factory 81’s lyrics.  The band, which formed in 1997 and consists of vocalist Wallace, guitarist Bill Schultz, bassist Kevin Lewis, and drummer Andy Cyrulnik spent their early years gaining a following in their native Detroit.  Yes, the legendary motor city whose musical roots were carved in stone, and unfortunately strayed from that foundation under the flood of Hip-Hop influence in recent years.  Factory 81 had a direction when they started out, and have not strayed from the path since their inception.  With this determination in their musical direction things have just seemed to happen for the band since their formation.  This band has been in the right place at the right time, and made the right choices in getting their career of the ground.

The band had originally released their debut album Mankind on the small independent label Medea records before signing on with bigger and more powerful independent label Mojo records, which offered the band the company’s ability to universally distribute Mankind.  The original recording of Mankind was done in one take, which pretty much gave it a powerful live sound.  Upon re-mastering Mankind for release by Mojo, the band was informed by the label that Rhys Fulber (Fear Factory, Machine Head) would be re-mixing a bonus track for the album, which met the bands full approval. The original working title of Mankind was Man King, but an error at the print shop sent the batch of album covers back to the band with the title Mankind on them instead.  “The option was there to change it back,” says guitarist Bill Schultz, “but as soon as ‘Mankind’ came up, it made sense.”  The topics on the album run the gamut from social, political, and spiritual, and thanks to killer re-mastering and re-mixing work on the album your ears will explode from the dense audio assault of Factory 81. 
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Listen to sound clips and Purchase the CD online

Photos courtesy of Universal Records. All Rights Reserved by Copyright holder.