Factory (Shihad Cover) Video and Single Review

“If you want a vision of the future

Imagine a boot stamping on a human face

– forever.”

George Orwell.

My introduction to Shihad was fairly late in the game; sometime after they’d made their transition to pop/rock and just before the whole Pacifier saga. Until watching their Beautiful Machine Biopic I didn’t know about the band’s origins as underage, underground, Thrash Metallers, or that they once dabbled in Industrial, the stomping ground of Throbbing Gristle, Ministry and to a lesser extent Nine Inch Nails.

The relevance of this will be immediately apparent to those of you who have seen our news article, here on Muzic.net.nz or on our Facebook page, regarding Dying Of The Light’s cover of Factory from Shihad’s 1993 debut album, Churn. Personally, I saw it posted on a certain sub-community page, unaware of the song’s origins, or that one day it would land in my inbox.  

Covers are ubiquitous on Youtube. Every tone-deaf wannabe and their dog (literally and figuratively) can upload a video of hairbrush karaoke and get views.

The difference between wasting bandwidth and Dying of the Light is these guys take Shihad’s song and own it. 

And it’s not just a song to these guys. The lyrics of Factory are a reflection of Dying of the Light’s list of influences. You can sing something from the Top 10 into your hairbrush and hope some of the fame rubs off on you, or you can do an Industrial cover of Justin Bieber. It wouldn’t sound cool, and it would be meaningless. 

There is an implicit reverence for Shihad’s work in this song, as the song remains recognizable, but it’s been resprayed in a hardened, darker, Ministry-like coating. They’ve somehow made the machine-like Industrial sound that typified Shihad’s debut album and made it more Industrial, heavier and more like a machine. With the Al Jourgensen-tinged vocals, Chris Rigby sounds beyond pissed off about being stuck in a factory.

The video is well done for a self-funded and produced effort. Images of machinery and light waves thrown over the duo that is Dying of the Light. More than a step up from a low-res and ill-positioned webcam set up you’ll find in the karaoke videos.

If you’re into Industrial, Shihad or have a fetish for machinery, I recommend the rest of Dying of the Light’s Monolithium EP, on which their cover of Factory features.

You can find the four track Monolithium EP on the Dying of the Light Bandcamp page (http://dyingofthelight.bandcamp.com/), and the Factory video here (http://vimeo.com/93937057).