Front Line Assembly – Improvised Electronic Device

Improvised. Electronic. Device. isn't the strongest of FLA albums, if you had to ask me. The title of the album is referring to the approach that was taken for recording the album, rather than the sound of it. As Leeb explained in an interview regarding IED, the album's creation process was non-standard in that various of the band wrote songs on their own and later collaborated to bring them to fruition.

Unfortunately, the result sounds like a mixture of different FLA eras (FLAvour of the Weak, Implode, Millenium/Hardwired, Artificial Soldier and Civilization). The focus is jarring and unfortunately leads to a lot of uninspired sounding songs that are easy to write off as filler.

The strongest songs on the album are the singles, Angrif and Shifting Through the Lens. Following those, I.E.D., Hostage, Afterlife and Downfall the only other stand out tracks. The sounds of these songs range from the albums listed up above, with the exception maybe of Afterlife. Afterlife is interesting since it is a more personal song from Leeb (it's about the ing of his father). It has a different type of sound to it that could almost be equated to that of the balad-esque tracks from TNI and Hardwired.

The remainder of the album though is unfortunately a mess. Most of the tracks sound the same and they all blend together into one big ball of Millenium/Implode wannabes that would best have been left on the cutting room floor. Stupidity is easily the worst of the bunch, as since it is a guest track featuring Al Jourgensen of Ministry, it sounds like a Ministry song (and a bad one at that).

The bonus tracks do help make up for the messy metal tracks though as they feature a more varied approach versus the mess that crept its way onto the album.

I'd say this gets a 3.5 / 5 from me if I had to give it a specific rating. There's enough on here to carry it but the bad filler tracks really do weigh it down and hurt the album. The approach that was used to create this album was probably not the best choice for Bill, despite his fondness of collaborating. The end result sounds like Bill was spread too thin.