First there was Skinny Puppy, then there was Front 242, and then came Front Line Assembly. FLA always seemed kind of like a thinned-out Skinny Puppy, which would make sense since main-man Bill Leeb left Skinny Puppy early on (under the pseudonym "Wilhelm Schroeder.")
Skinny Puppy's brand of cacophonous, abstracted electronic industrial music forms the basis around which Front Line Assembly was built, but it's really Front 242, the "electronic body music" pioneers, who seem to have inspired Lieb and FLA the most. What I loved about FLA was that it focused less on the dance-based aspect of EBM that Front 242 was known for, incorporating more of the cinematic flourish Skinny Puppy exhibited in some of their best moments. While Skinny Puppy eventually collapsed, after Dwayne Goettel died of a heroin overdose, and Front 242 sputtered to a halt, both in the mid-90s, Front Line Assembly kept at it.
Initially burdened with a sound very obviously derived from SP and 242, the later 90s proved a vital time in which Front Line Assembly allowed itself to grow quite a bit. Fellow founding member Rhys Fulber left to pursue other project, giving the reins fully to Leeb. Softening the abrasive, hard-hitting beats and incorporating more of the sweeping, grandiose new-age treatments Leeb investigated with his Delerium project, Front Line Assembly was finally able to slip out from under the charges of being second-tier industrial gods and, after a bit of a struggle evident on Flavour Of The Weak, find new footing with its own unique sound. With the help of Chris Peterson, Leeb fashioned three of the band's most diverse albums, if not all fully satisfying, but Fulber rejoined the fold to record Civilization.
The result is one of the band's best works - fusing the orchestral majesty that blossomed under Leeb's direction with the hard-hitting, beat-heavy origins associated with the band and genre. While I was looking forward to the band following more in the direction of their last album, the amazing Epitaph, after a few listens I have found that Civilization is a more satisfying, intriguing, and just plain fun album to listen to. Leeb is still the dominant leader, but it's clear that Fulber's rejoining has re-centered the band around its more harsh origins.
While it echoes the sound of the early period electro/industrial movement, it is very clearly a forward looking endeavor, incorporating the latest sounds, beats, and textures. It's far too vital to be retro, and far too fun to be written off as a cash-in on the next big genre-resurrection.
(Unproductivity is the next big thing.)
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Excellent, always liked them a lot - glad they are back together as FLA. Industrial has grown pretty moribund.
2 - Mark Saleski
i'm gonna have to check some of this stuff out.
how does it compare to, say, Skinny Puppy's "Too Dark Park"? (which i sometimes find too harsh to listen to)
3 - Tom Johnson
Thanks Eric. I was really surprised by how fun this album is. Industrial seems to have pretty much died a very ugly death (which may be fitting, since the genre on the whole is so obsessed with ugliness and all,) but FLA always kept me coming back for more.
Mark: this is nowhere near as dense as Too Dark Park. I really can't compare the two all that much - TDP is like an insane carnival of noise, very divergent and full of intriguing distractions. This album is very straight-forward industrial like FLA used to do, with a little of the newer sounds and styles mixed in - which is what makes it so intriguing. But I gotta say, TDP is absolutely one of my most favoritest albums of all time. It's just so noisy and rancorous. But it's nothing compared to Last Rights. That album is so aggressive, angry, frightening, but beautifully so. Damn, I wish I had that with me today . . .
4 - Tom Johnson
By the way, Eric, thanks for fixing my line breaks. I don't know how that happened - it happened on my site, too. Maybe it was because I was doing this just minutes before bed and I was very tired . . .
5 - Mark Saleski
the little bits of FLA that i listened to on amazon remind me (a little) of Squarepusher and Aphex Twin
6 - Jim S
"Softening the abrasive, hard-hitting beats and incorporating more of the sweeping, grandiose new-age treatments Leeb investigated with his Delerium (which is the correct spelling, not Delirium, as it is in your post) project.."
"Leeb is still the dominant leader, but it's clear that Fulber's rejoining has re-centered the band around its more harsh origins."
I'm not so sure that you're fully aware that 1) Fulber was the main programmer before he left. 2) Fulber was ALSO a "founding member" of Delerium (FLA was their "heavier" project and Delerium was for the softer, more melodic stuff they wrote, but they often crossed between them) and 3) Fulber was also exploring the "grandiose new-age treatments" - see Conjure One if you don't believe me.
Rhys Fulber would NOT be back in FLA only to "follow" Bill Leeb's lead. It's MUCH more likely that they had a falling-out that's been fixed now, or Fulber realized that FLA/Delerium will sell more.
7 - Eric Olsen
All of this has inspired me to put up a profile of the band from '98.
8 - Tom Johnson
Jim, I'm well aware of the points you make. I'm also more than aware that FLA is Leeb's band - he retained the name when Fulber left, afterall. If you can't find some correlation between the heavier attitude of the new album and Fulber's rejoining, I can't help you. I think maybe you misread the review (especially after you act like I don't know what Delerium is, when I specifically pointed it out in the review) - I never insinuated that Fulber is, as you put it, "back in FLA only to 'follow' Bill Leeb's lead." What I did say was that the pair, together again, have refocused FLA on the harder-edged stuff they started out doing.
Why the hostility, Jim? (And why the snotty spelling correction? It's Leeb who misspelled it! I'm just correcting him.) I think my review paints a pretty good picture of the album and gives a light history of the group for 99.9% of people out there. The .01%, the die-hards, might not find much to gain from any review - but they've all likely bought the album regardless of reviews anyway.
9 - Jim S
Hostile? No. Contrarian, perhaps, but I didn't intend to be hostile. The misspelling is actually common and I'm not quite sure WHY I pointed it out...
Fulber rejoining brought them full-circle to what worked for them before. The sum of the parts being stronger than the individuals or however that saying goes.
I guess my point was that Delerium was always the "new-agey" project, even when Fulber was in it. FLA was always the harder, more industrial side of their collaboration. I hated the two FLA discs Leeb did without Fulber.. they were too Delerium-ish, if you will.
10 - walter
"Front Line Assembly was finally able to slip out from under the charges of being second-tier industrial gods" and "Initially burdened with a sound very obviously derived from SP and 242"
Huh? Caustic Grip and tactical neural implant are industrial/electronic classics - very unique FLA sound. To call them derivative of SP and F242 is a bit silly, the themes are radically different.
In my opinion, FLA started to suck around the time of "flavour of the weak" , though prophecy was alright.