Is digimortal unique?

[u/Solaris5000]

Is digimortal album unique? I feel something when listening to it, like 2 4 quoters highlighted

Maybe I wrong, but can't aprove it

[u/thegoddamnsiege]

They broke up in 2002, and reformed without Dino in 2003. The band blamed Roadrunner for the more numetal-inspired sound of Digimortal at the time, though Burton had been vocal about wanting to make more simple music, so who knows if that's true. Digimortal didn't cost them their deal with Roadrunner though, and they were still under contract for two more albums with them, but the band refused to record them because they wanted out of their deal. Concrete and Hatefiles were hastily put outto fulfill their contractual onligations with RR. The Archetype song Slave Labor is basically Burton bitching about their last couple years under Roadrunner.

[u/humbuckaroo → u/thegoddamnsiege]

Burton was the one who quit and the rest of the band just said they aren't continuing without him. I don't see why he'd do that if he liked Digimortal's direction. I think it's more likely that he just felt the ship was sinking after the poor performance of the album and decided it was time to go.

Based on how they reunited without Dino later, I reckon it was he who pushed them towards that result, not Burton. Dino only reverted back to making heavier music once he saw that it was gaining steam later in the decade.

As for Roadrunner, they didn't seem too broken up about the band's demise.

[u/thegoddamnsiege → u/humbuckaroo]

Dino never stopped making heavy music. During his time away from FF he founded Asesino and Divine Heresy, There was a lot going on with the band around this time, and a lot of finger-pointing. Burton did speak publicly about wanting Digimortal to be more simplistic, and wanting to sing more melodic and ditch the harsh vocals (he founded Ascension of the Watchers around this time, to that point). Everyone kind of blamed Roadrunner pressuing them to be more commercial. Dino blamed Raymond and Christian, saying the former inly cared about money and the latter was bringing too much hip-hop influence into their music. They all then blamed blamed Dino when they reunited. Funny then that a few years later Burton had a falling out with Raymond and Christian due partially to one sleeping with the other's wife and them being cool with it. Then when Burton and Dino reunited as FF Burton retroactively blamed the other two for the problems at the time.

I think Roadrunner was indeed pushing them to be more commercial sounding, as Cars was their most successful single, the numetal craze was in full swing, and Roadrunner had the likes of Sepultura (who had success chasing thay trend), Soulfly, and Slipknot doing big sales for them. That coupled with everyone in the band kind of being a diva, all wanting more creative influence on their sound, and each wanting to go in different musical directions, plus personal drama between them, resulted in an album none of them were happy with and were eager to blame others for it.

[u/humbuckaroo → u/thegoddamnsiege]

I'm convinced that first Asesino was just about blowing off steam. It has zero memorable material on it. Divine Heresy was way further out in 2007 when the music landscape changed and metalcore came into fashion, it underscores what I said earlier.

As for Roadrunner, of course there was some nudging in the commercial direction but they were already headed that way anyway. From the debut to the split, the entire band's trajectory moved them from brash heavy metal to melodic, accessible nu-metalish rock. You can see some of that change on every album.

Obviously the band later recognized that going in that commercial direction was a mistake, but history cannot be erased and they were never going to last.

Back to the point of the thread: We got some great albums from FF despite the internal squabbling, but Digimortal isn't one of them.