Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsBest album of the industrial era
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2013
From the mists of 1993--one of the best years the pop music industry ever had--comes this under-appreciated masterpiece by Front 242. It doesn't sound much like any other Front 242 album, but it stands alone as an extremely catchy and articulate example of the "cyberpunk" sound which came and went during the 90's.
Although I bought the album (for the 3rd time) on Mp3 during a bout of nostalgia, I find that it has managed to sound remarkably fresh. That quality Someday soon, some hot young DJ will discover this album again and it may experience a rebirth.
The "hit" off this album is the song Religion. The intro to this pounding song is a clinic on how to effectively introduce a melody.
There is an immense amount of detail and texture in this album (much of which is layers of different colors of noise), and the beats / drum production are both very danceable and unique (very resonant, organic drum sounds which sit farther back in the mix than anything else at the time); conveying both intrigue and warmth. This could have been the Dark Side of the Moon for industrial / EBM (in that it really extended a lot of contemporary genre methodology and flipped it so that a completely unique and engrossing atmosphere is conveyed. This album certainly could have and maybe should have reached a much broader audience; perhaps it was still too specific for the mainstream. Perhaps it was too far ahead of its time.
