Review: Frontline Assembly

Frontline Assembly
“Civilization”
(Metropolis)

Stark, beat driven electronic arrangements that still general retain a sense of ‘song’.  A more somber Thrill Kill Kult comes to mind (but I’ve been listening to a lot of that lately, so I hear their influence in everything with a keyboard and a sassy dark beat).

Frontline Assembly is darker, but weave a lot of softer sounds into their beats so it’s not real assaulting.  Female vocals make their appearance to even further temper the machine like quality that persists throughout the release.  Mid-tempo seems to be the favored pace.  Never hurried, nor dragging… more like drifting along the same the ideas, wrapping them up in layers of whispered lyrics and dully moaned verses.  Most music like this strikes me as very cinematic and would make great background scores to many indie art flicks.

The dark smooth vibe that defines Frontline Assembly is what the band mostly draws upon, although the short, but quirky and ambitious track “Strategic” is a challenging, frenetic display of bubbling synth, echoing samples and a rhythmic composition that should impress most any fan of the programmable beat.  Frontline Assembly comes across as both accomplished and significant, which are both esteemed qualities in a genre that has every PC jockey proclaiming himself “DJ”.  This is also good, slow paced sex music.  Smooth and lulling and you should get easily lost in it’s hypnotic waves.  I don’t know if that was the bands intention, but hey, you use your music the way you want to, and I’ll get some soft-core bondage with mine.