Front 242 – 06:21:03:11 Up Evil

You will listen to this differently from time over time~unintentionally not intended to be “music”. Based on cuts from mind relaxation sound waves. May need good sound processing and equipment to pry at it.

I just bought this after seeing the tour for this album and giving up on F242 20 years ago. The sound here is diffuse and weak compared to their earlier material. This is doubly disappointing following the incredible "Tyranny >For You<," which I thought was their best. This is a thick, cloudy album with a poor mix, with the vocals de-emphasized and the overall ambient noise level cranked up to little avail. Only 2-3 cuts were memorable on a first listen.

I never caught onto this album. Perhaps I find it going to many directions with the metal influences giving me a very hard time. This certainly is far from the earlier F242 EBM sound I fell for and which I guess always will be my perception of F242. Like opening track crappage. It's got industrial anger, alright, but never really starts to interest me. Anger is fine, but should be taken somewhere.

Still, when it works best here, it works freaking well. Track 5, Religion, is one fucked-up industrial attack with one of the meanest F242 choruses I know off. Follow up track 6 Stratoscape is pretty sweet, too, introducing a dark bass line like only F242 can do it. Together with Melt these two tracks nearly saves the album. This is how I like F242 best. Up-front, danceable, energetic, angry. And more EBM than industrial.

But new comers should look to F242's earlier works, like Tyranny For You or Front By Front, before digging in here. This sounds like Trent Reznor on acid and qualitywise is far from some of F242's earlier and more interesting works. IMHO.

Btw, the title "06:21:03:11 Up Evil" changes into a somewhat more Parental Guidance title if you replace the numbers with letters counting through the alphabet. Go ahead! You know you want to.

amazing album... so far ahead of it's time. i tried finding other music from 92-93 that sounded something like this and am still unsuccessful. to think, that after this album (and OFF) they played Lollapalooza in 93... yet still no one caught on! the best thing about this album is the legendary EBM sound they established in the 80s was not totally abandonded, but developed upon with layers and layers of briliant sound design and atmosphere - creating an album that can be listened to, danced to, background or foreground. a true work of art.

For the first time in their career, Front decided to involve someone else in the production process. Oddly they choose Andy Wallace (famous for his work with Nirvana) to do the job. The result is Front's heaviest album to date, exchanging the slick production of 'Tyranny <for you>' for rancid industrial, making it more suitable for the american market.