E-Mail This Article to a Friend Beyond Ozzfest Fear Factory and Machine Head get their own tours rolling BY SEAN RICHARDSON

Today’s young metalheads know the Roadrunner label as the home of Ozzfest stalwarts Slipknot and Killswitch Engage. When Ozzy Osbourne first took his circus on the road, back in 1997, those two were still getting their acts together in their respective Iowa and Massachusetts home towns. But Roadrunner was already making its presence felt on that initial bill, which included four of its biggest names: Type O Negative, Fear Factory, Machine Head, and Coal Chamber. Right now, as Ozzfest 2004 rolls across the country, two of those bands are pronouncing themselves alive and well by launching tours of their own. Fear Factory are playing Axis in Boston this Saturday, and Machine Head are at the Palladium in Worcester next Friday.

Fear Factory are out in support of Archetype (Liquid 8), their first new album in three years and their first since the demise of their decade-long partnership with Roadrunner. It’s off to an impressive start at retail, debuting at a career-high #30 on the Billboard album chart when it came out in April. That’s a triumph in the face of adversity for the LA electro-metal kings, who are now the flagship act on a general-interest label (other current priority: Smokey Robinson) that’s just getting off the ground. They’re also on the rebound from the recent departure of founding guitarist Dino Cazares.

If the first-week sales of Archetype aren’t enough to convince metalheads that Fear Factory are still vital, then the video for the disc’s first single, "Cyberwaste," should do the trick. Filmed during a recent Australian tour, the clip shows them giving a daytime performance at a makeshift industrial venue, playing on the floor and surrounded by fans. Frontman Burton Bell is an enraged coil of scraggly hair and forearm tattoos, and the song makes no room for the melodic flourishes that have gotten the band occasional mainstream airplay over the years. "Nothing you say matters to us," Bell shrieks, aiming his vitriol at Internet gossip fiends. The chorus borders on grindcore, and when it comes to heaviness, the band have no problem competing with Ozzfest’s new breed.

Fans who miss Fear Factory’s trademark pop choruses and keyboards on "Cyberwaste" will be happy to find plenty of both on the rest of Archetype. The group deploy some of their sharpest hooks on "Corporate Cloning" and "Bite the Hand That Bleeds," both of which vilify the music biz. Bell also goes after religious extremists ("Act of God") and warmongers ("Human Shields"), but he saves his choicest words for the soaring title track, which alludes to the band’s first disc in a shot at Cazares: "The infection has been removed/The soul of this machine has been improved." By moving Christian Wolbers from bass to guitar and adding Strapping Young Lad bassist Byron Stroud, Fear Factory have figured out a way to survive — and on Archetype they match the insightful brutality of their previous work.

Line-up changes have been a fact of life for Machine Head since the 1994 release of their classic debut, Burn My Eyes. So this time, when frontman Robert Flynn needed yet another new guitarist, he went looking for one in his own past. On the Bay Area thrashers’ Through the Ashes of Empires (Roadrunner), Flynn shares six-string duties with Phil Demmel, who was also his foil when he hit the charts in 1988 with his first band, Vio-Lence.

Demmel’s fierce solo on "In the Presence of My Enemies" is one clue that Machine Head have turned their backs on the crossover dreams of 2001’s lackluster Supercharger. "Imperium," the epic first single from Empires, is another. Clocking in at almost seven minutes, the track shifts between somber melodies and shotgun riffage with old-school flair. And Flynn deals in the kind of vulgar empowerment that once made him the heir apparent to Pantera’s Philip Anselmo: "Fuck these chains/No goddamn slave/I will be different."

The rest of Empires is just as ambitious: the vengeful "Enemies" and the neo-classical finale, "Descend the Shades of Night," also hover around the seven-minute mark. But Flynn’s street-tough delivery keeps things immediate. On "Left Unfinished," he lashes out at his biological parents, whom he’s never met; "Wipe the Tears" is an inspirational spoken-word rant for burnouts everywhere. By returning to their anti-mainstream roots, Machine Head have repositioned themselves as a classic metal band for the Killswitch generation.

Fear Factory perform this Saturday, July 31, at Axis, 13 Lansdowne Street in Boston; call (617) 262-2437. Machine Head perform next Friday, August 6, at the Palladium, 261 Main Street in Worcester; call (508) 797-9696.