Fear Factory have released “Roboticist”, their first single featuring singer Milo Silvestro and drummer Pete Webber, signalling what guitarist Dino Cazares describes as a new era for the industrial metal band. The release matters because it is the group’s first new recorded material with musicians who have already spent nearly three and a half years in its touring line-up, following a period focused on performing its older catalogue.

Released through Nuclear Blast and premiered on SiriusXM Liquid Metal, the track was produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Damien Rainaud, with a video directed by Vincente Cordero. Its lyrics centre on a roboticist, portrayed as an “architect of the artificial” building machines intended to outlast human flesh, continuing Fear Factory’s long-running focus on artificial intelligence, technology and human control; Cazares said the band did not use AI to write the music, although it is embedded in modern recording software.