Although the half of the 16 tracks featured on Concrete were rerecorded to make up Fear Factory's official Roadrunner debut in 1992, Soul of a New Machine, this is a fascinating document for metal historians. When the LA industrial noisemongers first joined forces in 1991 with a then little-known wannabe producer called Ross Robinson, nu-metal was still a twinkle in Korn's collective eye (and Korn's genre defining debut a good three years away). Nonetheless, Fear Factory and Robinson sneaked into former WASP singer Blackie Lawless's studio at night to lay down the blueprint for nu-metal's more extreme wing, making a ground-breaking album for a mere $5000.

Songs such as "Soulwomb" and "Deception" have a dense, brutal claustrophobic feel that Robinson would later call upon when he worked his magic on Korn and Limp Bizkit. And even though its cut-price nature leads to a slightly patchy, rough and ready feel, this has a potency and charm that many of Fear Factory's later technology-boosted efforts lacked. For those who want to hear the sound of a good idea gestating a decade before its time, then Concrete is an oddity worth much more than that status. --Ian Watson