FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY – Maniacal CDS

Will this be it? Is “Maniacal” an overture to bionic swan’s song? By all omens and answers given, yes, and it also sounds like one. Listening to this little excerpt from the upcoming farewell album had reminded my why I have been enjoying their music so much for so long. And it surely made me realise how much I am going to miss that feeling of playing each new album for the first time.
It is the hour for one-before-last review of Front Line Assembly release..

‘Maniacal’ is a song that is constructed out of parts and pieces of their previous hits; speed and fluency of ‘Gun’ for instance, guitar cuts reminiscent of ‘Millennium’ era (a bit blunted though), atmosphere of “Implode”/”Epitaph” to add necessary darkness and a Latin chant sample – to add even more darkness. All of FLA in one – can’t be worse than excellent. Flaws are limited to production: it is not complete. It is unexpectedly unfinished to be exact. Their songs (especially new ones) are perfect in construction: layers sharply lined up, all gaps filled, impeccable flow of audio data. Precise to perfection. Here that is not the case. It is like something is missing, an echo or some other effect or sound. I am speculating, but it could be due to preparations and actual Delerium tour that Leeb/Fulber didn’t have time to complete the song 100%. That doesn’t affect the overall quality of ‘Maniacal’, but still it’s worth noting as strange and interesting. Everything else is standard: lyrics, vocoding, even the remix (repercussion mix). With extended being only true difference, I’m eagerly skipping a couple of lines just to present you the real reason why this single is a ‘must hear’ tagged: track 3 – ‘Anti’.

THAT is why Rhys Fulber is needed in Front Line Assembly line up – to add that specific touch of amazing sampling and sense of joining musical contrasts into one. ‘Anti’ is a perfect example of his craft: after semi-standard newsreel voices embedded in standard FLA intro, we are met by a middle-eastern sample used also on Delerium’s song ‘Run For It’ from “Chimera”. But being cut to optimal size, boosted, put through vocoder and then layered among guitars and strong electronics, it found its perfect place: a contrast to bruising hard electro. Nothing less of brilliance! Pure proof why Front Line Assembly is an icon and why they have a place reserved among the true legends of electronic music.

[ I cannot grade the release upon just 2 ½ songs, but if you need an advice whether to buy FLA records or not, better switch to some other genre of music ]