REVIEW: Front 242, Live Code (Play it Again Sam)
- Krisjanis P. Gale
A bit more quick-and-dirty than polished studio productions by Front 242, but it's all here - everything that has made the group remain true to the industrial genre. Beautifully architected orchestral facades. Long introductions and bridges, filled with lots of dirty, distorted leads. Lots of cryptic lyrics with heavy german accent, and enough modern age angst to grind any casual luddite into dust.
This is the sort of music you would hear in the late 80s/early 90s, when industrial was quite new to college radio; before the mainstream had ever heard of Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Meat Beat Manifesto, etc.
Hardcore fans of Front 242 will find live versions of some of their favorite tunes from Tyranny 4 You, including really decent performances of "Tragedy For You" and "Headhunter', two of my favorites from way back in the day.
At first listen, I was a bit surprised to hear tunes that were so dated, but then I looked at the date of the performance - October 25, 1993. And then I was able to just revel in nostaligia, remembering a time before the term "electronica" was even coined; a time when freeform musical experimentation was more important than record sales.
Despite the fairly sketchy job on the live mix by the on-stage engineers, this is an important piece of history, and anyone seeking to expand their collection of industrial music should pick this disc up.
