Artificial Soldier - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

Album Description
The best FLA release the electronic industrial community has seen in over a decade. Heavy pounding beats, atmospheric strings, percolating melodies, dynamic synths, and Bill Leeb's trademark vocals couldn't be fused together any tighter if you tried to do it at an atomic level. As if all those factors weren't enough, two guest vocalists appear: Eskil Simonsson from Covenant and Jean-Luc De Meyer from Front 242.

Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...

3 out of 5 stars

Artificial Stimulus October 9, 2006
9 out of 14 found this review helpful

In the annals of the FLA aesthetic, Artificial Soldier fits somewhere in between Implode and Epitaph which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it lacks the artistic maturity that made 2004's epic Civilization a creative breakthrough for FLA and is a regression back to the steady-state mediocrity before Rhys Fulber made his long-awaited return to the band. It's more of the same-old same-old which, if you're a long-time fan is very pacifying but from a creative standpoint reverts FLA backwards to a temporal state of stylistic redundancy. With Jean-Luc De Meyer of Front 242 providing vocals on Future Fail, for a second there he almost had me fooled into believing that this was a new Front 242 album. I've always been a fan of both FLA and Front 242 and conceptually it's an inevitable crossover but considering the fact that 2003's Pulse was a disappointing comeback Jean-Luc De Meyer needs to just go and make a new 242 album instead of making guest appearances on other band's albums like he's the Snoop Dogg of industrial music. Eskil Simonsson from Covenant also appears on The Storm and while it's a refreshing change-up from Bill Leeb's menacing vocals it feels more like a remix cut rather than a genuine FLA construct. What FLA needs right now is an injection of its own raw dopamine to reinvigorate its stalled creative stimulus and get itself back on the inspired artistic movement it wasn't afraid of risking with Civilization instead of churning out algorithmic artifice of itself.

5 out of 5 stars

An all around great album... January 3, 2007
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

Some of Front Line Assembly's recent albums haven't been up to par with their very best albums. (Notably Tactical Neural Implant, Caustic Grip, State of Mind. Though, for my money, anything they put out in the eighties and early nineties was excellent.) I think their decline started with Millennium, which I felt was really not very good at all. Hard Wired looked like a return to form, but they started sinking again after that.

However, Artificial Soldier is absolutely excellent. The best track, I feel, is Future Fail. It's interesting that I like it so much, as the lead singer on that is Jean-Luc De Meyer from Front 242. (And I am not a fan of Front 242 at all.)

It's really quite hard to describe just how good this album is. Gone are the guitar parts of Millennium (which never sounded right on a Front Line Assembly album.) The political-tinged lyrics are back, but not in the way they used to be. (If you listen carefully to State of Mind, which came out in 1988, you can hear a sample from a news show talking about how dangerous al-Qaeda is. That just stands out in my mind of how much Bill Leeb knows about what's going on in the world. How many people outside the Middle East knew what al-Qaeda was in 1988?) Future Fail, for instance, references an ambiguous future where people are ruled by a tyrant. ("They massacre, call it progress/They plunder and call it wealth") Then again, the lyrics (with a very few exceptions) have always been fairly ambiguous as to their subject.

Overall, though, this is an excellent album. Any FLA or industrial fan in general should have it in their collection.

4 out of 5 stars

Yep, this is a FLA album June 20, 2006
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

FLA albums are pratically impossible to review due to the fact that you either like the sound of this band or you dont, needless to say all the trademark sounds & vocals are in place & its sort of non-stop & relentless & of course it takes awhile to grow on you. I really liked the direction the band was going on the last album & I wish they would have stayed on that course but this is still a fantastic album & is worth buying just to hear Jean-Luc DeMyer(Front242)sing on "Future Fail" which sounds better than anything on the last F242 album. FLA arent trying to reinvent the wheel on this album its just solid craftsmanship at work & fans of old school FLA should adore this.

5 out of 5 stars

Revitalized my interest. July 25, 2006
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

I can't say this is necessarily a return to anything, but it definitely brings back an overtly angry edge I felt they'd been missing for a while. There'll never be another Tactical Neural Implant, Millenium or Hardwired, but this is a welcome version of their talent. I can hardly wait to hear this in a club so can I dance to some of its furiousness and even the long-missed stompiness.

4 out of 5 stars

Welcome back Mr. Peterson! July 3, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

If "Civilization" left you cold, then this one should do the trick.
Chris Peterson is back, and thankfully so. Rhys Fulber has his place with Leeb, but for my money "Flavour of the Weak" and "Implode" cannot be beaten. "Epitaph was a nice companion piece to those 2 discs, but "Civilization" was a real step backwards for a band who usually pushed electronic/industrial boundaries into new and uncharted territories. "Artificial Soldier" does a really nice job of putting Front Line back on track.

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