Frontline Assembly* – Monument

These remixes are great, I wish this was available on vinyl!

Monument is a compilation album that covers pre-Hardwired/Metropolis era FLA. It is implicitly a companion to another compilation album, "Reclamation".

Monument is a bit different since it includes a title track that which is not an FLA-specific track. It is a song by one of Bill and Rhys' many side projects, Intermix, albeit in a different form. The rest of the album is, like Reclamation, remixes and b-sides taken from various singles that are now out of print. To be frank, the whole thing feels like the rest of what would have been on a double album if Reclamation were one entire release.

As far as content goes, the biggest things to note on here are the other b-sides from the TNI era, which are actually the songs taken from FLA's never released "Toxic" EP. As with the ones found on Reclamation, you can definitely hear where the band was starting to brush up on its production techniques and was beginning to take on a more cyber punk flavor of EBM/Industrial versus the more traditional sound that was found on earlier releases.

Mutilate, one of the B-sides, is more on the Caustic Grip side of the FLA sound, but denser. It is dark and is somewhat like a lead up or follow up to the song Toxic. It's actually one of the less impressive songs out of the bunch, but it still has significance since it provides a glimpse of what Caustic Grip would have had if the band could have afforded better hardware at the time.

Re-Animate is the last of the B-sides from TNI era and it is the most surprising of all the "Toxic" tracks. It's easily one of the strongest songs in FLA's catalogue, despite its dated sound. The drum loops and other sounds used in the song are both similar and not dissimilar to what was used on Caustic Grip and the track Gun on TNI. It features other FLA hallmarks such as a fun chorus, TNI-esque synth lines and it is just overall an extraordinarily strong track. It's a shame, because if Toxic had been released, Re-Animate would have easily become one of the band's signature songs / hits.

Laughing Pain is another one of the B-Side tracks. The interesting thing about this one is that it has a guitar driven sound that could be mistaken as a precursor to Millenium. However, its squarely more on the TNI/Hardwire era due to its production sound and darker sound. In some ways it also has a bit of a tinge of Bill's old band, Skinny Puppy, due to the numerous movie samples used throughout.

The song Transitime is worth noting since it is a b-side from the Millenium era, which by itself is terribly similar to other songs found on Millenium. However it gives the listener a way to hear the progression of the band's sound as it goes from the more grungy industrial sound found on the older tracks (Big Money, Virus) to what they were putting out before they switched to Metropolis records.

The track Monument itself doesn't try to beat around the bushes and it definitely shows off the more dance/techno vibe that FLA had experimented with during the Interimix side-act. While it is a fun track, it still seems out of place on this compilation. If I had to describe it, it's a more upbeat and less dark FLAvour of the Weak sound that has a distinct early 90's vibe.

The rest of the compilation is probably take it or leave it. Mental Distortion can be found on the re-release of Caustic Grip and it sounds the same as what is on here. The surge remix of Overkill doesn't really do anything new with the song and the remixes of Big Money, Resist, Virus and Vexation should really be classified as instrumental versions. And the "Worldwide' remix of The Blade isn't the best choice, which is very unfortunate as the better Blindfold and Technohead remixes are still not available anywhere besides the out of print "The Blade" single (which also is not available digitally). Suffice to say, this compilation is definitely weaker than Reclamation, although if you are an FLA fan and you do not have "Re-Animate" on anything, it makes it worth it.