Front Line Assembly - Artificial Soldier

Label: Metropolis
Catologue Number: MET431
Format: CD
Date: 2006
Style: Industrial
Rating: 5/10
Reviewer: Wilhelm Stroker

Artificial Solder is the new album by industrial grandfathers Front Line Assembly, now a four piece consisting of Leeb, Fulber, Chris Peterson and Jeremy Inkel. Those expecting a radical change in style and influences such as on the brilliant Flavour of the Weak will be disappointed with this album: when the long atmospheric intro of Unleashed starts and the first words Bill sings are World Domination you know you've heard it all before.

Low Life starts promising but is ruined by an awful tempo change, Beneath the Rubble has nice string melodies but reminds me a lot of Dead Planet off Epitaph, just like Humanity (WW III) sounds very close to Search and Destroy off Millennium, a 12 year old album. And that's the biggest problem I have with this album. While it's all beautifully produced and modern sounding, there is hardly any innovation or new ideas on Artificial Solder, most songs sound like they have been written by the Automatic FLA Song Generator and wouldn't sound out of place on any of the post TNI output. The exception to this is is Dopamine with its groovy beat and guitar riffs.

Artificial Solder also sees the introduction of guest vocalists. JL De Meyer brings his strong Belgian accent to Future Fail, which again sounds like a standard FLA song but we also have The Storm with Eskil from Covenant on vocals. We at Kill Music aren't too keen on this style of music and even the talents of Leeb, Fulber and the rest are unable to save this song from sounding like glow-stick goth dribble.

Once a upon a time the thought of a new FLA album would bring a feeling of warmth to my soul, all it does now is bring the cold fear of repetition, repetition, repetition.