Review: BURTON C. BELL - Live in Brisbane

11 June

Written By Sense Crew

The Return of the Scapegoat

Wednesday 11th June 2025

Written by: Tom Wilson
Photos by: Tracy McLaughlan

I feel like a child of divorce. I mean, I am, but I feel like one too.

It hasn’t been the easiest run for fans of FEAR FACTORY. Lineup changes have been commonplace over the lifespan of the band, and now the fanbase seems to be split into two camps, leaving me feeling like I’m in shared custody between Burton C Bell and Dino Cazares. And just like a real divorce, both parents are trying to spoil us. The gig hasn’t even started yet, and there is already a line of fans waiting patiently to meet Burton, who is smiling and chatting to all comers next to the Triffid’s merch desk. He is disarmingly pleasant, and patiently listens to our stories when he’s not posing for selfies and laughing at my bad jokes. The crowd is buzzing, and the question on everyone’s lips is, “What songs are we going to hear?”

Pictured: Tom Wilson and the man who ruined his life in 1995.

Having brought a brand-new band to Australia to play material from across his entire career, he could have hired literally anyone to open and it would have been suitable. In Brisbane, he has chosen MONSTERS AROUND US, and rumbling synths shake the walls of the Triffid as they take the stage. A solo project being brought to life tonight by friends HOSTILE ARCHITECT and Ryan Begbie, MONSTERS is a pulverising mix of synths and crushing guitars bringing to mind everyone from Rhys Fulber to THE ALGORITHM and TYRANT OF DEATH.

Forgoing a live drummer and even a microphone, tonight’s show is an informal affair, Colin Cadell shouting self-depreciating wisecracks from the stage as he takes us through his catalogue, his bandmates disappearing and reappearing as required while Colin plays so hard he busts a string. You ever see someone and think, “We’re going to get along like a house on fire?” Colin is that guy. A memorable set!

After the changeover, the Dry Lung Vocal Martyr himself takes the stage, and they drop into Anti-Droid. Burton’s voice has famously got the structural integrity of an eggshell, but it is in fine form tonight, and he rolls his head back to let the languid chorus of Dog Day Sunrise unfurl towards the hangar-like roof. Next we get a taste of Drive Boy, Shooting, from the GZR project he did with BLACK SABBATH’s Geezer Butler, before CITY OF FIRE gets a look in with the stunning Hanya. Descent’s chorus is a fist-pumping singalong, and ASCENSION OF THE WATCHER’s Ghost Heart segues into one of the more surprising covers of the night, a version of RAMMSTEIN’s Du Hast done entirely without synths or keyboards, meaning we just watched an industrial icon do a hard rock version of an industrial classic (and for the most part, it works).

Burton is not an idiot. He knows that the majority of the crowd is here to hear his work with FEAR FACTORY, but tonight’s set puts a surprising emphasis on their 1992 debut Soul of a New Machine compared to their later material, and the crowd roars as the first bars of Scumgrief fill the air. More than thirty years since its release, the groundbreaking good cop/bad cop vocal style sounds as incredible as ever. Latest single Savages lands well, before he introduces upcoming song Cold Lazarus as having never been played before on this continent. Then it’s time for Replica, and its chorus transports me back to 1995, watching the music video as a wide-eyed ten-year-old who had never heard anything quite like it. Given how some people in the metal community view him in relation to the disintegration of FEAR FACTORY, ending the set with Scapegoat seems to be a knowing wink. Burton thanks us profusely for supporting him and tells us that he’ll be back at the merch desk in five minutes if we want to meet him, before the band leaves stage in a howl of feedback. There’s no encore tonight, but we definitely feel appreciated as an audience, and I’m keen to hear what he does next.