Sinthetic Alchemy

Summary
Sinthetic Alchemy is the debut album of North Fort Myers-based industrial band Khaos Faktory. The disc was originally released on April 20, 2008 on A Dark Philosophy Records. The first version of the album contained eight songs, plus two filler tracks provided by gangsta rapper Knife, and ran just shy of 28 minutes long. A new version of the album, titled Sinthetic Alchemy 2.0 is planned for release on Khaos Records in September 2008.

Standout Tracks
The disc opens with "Welcome To The Faktory", a dark introductory track with guitarist/programmer Mike Black on vocals. It was the shortest song on the album and the only one to feature Black on main vocals.

Track #2, "Cattle" is a re-recorded version of the 80-Proof Throwdown song of the same title from the latter's debut album Trailer Park Rhapsody. The song was co-written by "Beerkeg" Brandon Casterline of 80-Proof Throwdown in 2005. The guitars in this version of the song are played in drop-C tuning, unlike the original, which was played in drop-D. Main vocals are performed by Dave Spencer, with Mike Black singing briefly on the song's bridge.

Track #4, "Stoked" was the first song ever written and performed by Khaos Faktory as a band (KF was originally created as a solo project by Mike Black), and is the album's only song with former bassist Matt Pyro performing.

Track #5, an ambient song named "Scratch", is the only song featuring former lead guitarist Brian Freisen.

Track #7, "Liberated" was updated and rewritten from the original version from Khaos Faktory's forgotten demo EP Open For Business.

Tracks #6 and #10 were filler tracks created by Knife, ADP Records' A&R person. They were added to the disc to expand the number of tracks from eight to ten so that, according to Knife, the album would be eligible to appear on the Billboard charts. The names of the tracks were "Radio Tuner (Interlude)" and "Bonus Outro". "Radio Tuner" was exactly that: the sound of an analog radio being tuned from station to station. "Bonus Outro" was a spoken-word track where a digitally altered voice can be heard saying "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist" in a high pitch.

Artwork
The album's front cover art was designed by Mike Black and later slightly altered by Knife. The scheme is a long series of binary code (1's and 0's) layered over a black background. At the top of the cover is the band's name, and the album title is at the bottom. Across the center are black-and-white photos of the five band members that appeared on Sinthetic Alchemy (in the order of Spencer, Black, Das, Pyro and Freisen), digitally altered to appear grainy.

The CD label art had a black background with the band's name and album title at the top. To the right was a small picture of Eliphas Levi's depiction of Baphomet, a symbol commonly associated with Satanism. The rear cover also had a black background, and in the center was a red-and-black graphic of the Sigil of Baphomet (also known as the Pentamorph) with the track listing printed over the picture.

All of the artwork, save for the cover, featured Satanic imagery selected by Knife and unbeknownst by the band until the disc was released. None of the band members (including Pyro and Freisen, who both left the band around the time of the release) were happy with the artwork; Spencer thought of it as cliche and unoriginal, and Black didn't want Khaos Faktory to be perceived as a Satanic band, believing this would turn potential listeners and fans off to the band's music and open the gates for unwarranted criticism.

The artwork for the upcoming release of Sinthetic Alchemy 2.0 has been created from scratch and designed by Ryan McClellan and Mike Black.

Track Listing
(Original version)

1. Welcome To The Faktory 2. Cattle 3. Konflikted 4. Stoked 5. Scratch 6. Radio Tuner (interlude) 7. Liberated 8. Turboslut 9. All Good Things Must End 10. Bonus Outro