Soul of a New Machine is the debut studio album by American heavy metal band Fear Factory, released on August 25, 1992, by Roadrunner Records. Although this record was Fear Factory's first studio album to be released, it was actually their second album to be recorded, after Concrete, which was recorded earlier but not released until 11 years later. The German magazine Rock Hard described it as death metal with many other elements, such as industrial metal. On October 5, 2004, Soul of a New Machine was remastered and re-released in a digipak, packaged together with the remastered Fear Is the Mindkiller EP. Overview Guitarist Dino Cazares has stated that Soul of a New Machine is a concept album concerning man's creation of a machine that could be either technological or governmental. It was also confirmed by bassist Christian Olde Wolbers in an interview. The specific concept would later play a more prominent role in some of Fear Factory's later albums. Jason Birchmeier of AllMusic described the album as ushering in the alternative metal era of the 1990s. Soul of a New Machine has also been described as death metal with elements of genres like industrial metal and, to some extent, grindcore. Author Colin Larkin of The Encyclopedia of Popular Music wrote, "Soul of a New Machine established Fear Factory as a genuine death metal force, with a good collection of songs delivered with originality and ferocity." The record featured a different conceptual style from Fear Factory's