Front 242: Front By Front (1988)

Roll: 2-4-2
Album: Dead Meadow, Old Growth Front 242, Front by Front

The roll, 2-4-2, actually came up with Dead Meadow‘s 2008 album, Old Growth. But it just seemed a crime that with this roll I shouldn’t review a Front 242 album. And what better album to take on than the Belgian Juggernaut’s career pinnacle, and genre high-water mark, Front By Front (1988)?

To be honest, I also discovered that I have nothing to say about Old Growth. It’s a good, heady, fuzzy, psychedelic-rock album by a good, heady, fuzzy, psychedelic-rockband. If Spacemen 3 had possessed the chops (or even more unlikely, the inclination) to consciously emulate Zeppelin, Floyd, Hendrix, and Sabbath, they might have made a record something like this.

Or perhaps not. It’s a moot point since Dead Meadow actually did make the exact record I’ve just described. It’s called Old Growth and it’s pretty good. Let’s say 8-out-of-10 good. But a rating becomes irrelevant since unless you hate Jason Simon‘s voice—or good, heady, fuzzy, psychedelic-rock in general—you have no real, legitimate excuse for not liking this album. Still, it’s not really essential either. A little extra oomf, a few arena-sized hooks and trimming a little fat might have put it in 9 or 10 territory. But 8 ain’t bad. Assuming good, heady, fuzzy, psychedelic-rock is something that appeals to you.

Front By Front, on the other hand, is a bona fide master stroke and one of the most artistically successful albums in any genre and it’s one you have no legitimate excuse for not liking. Well, that’s assuming clinical, Teutonic, mechanized, nihilistic techno is something that remotely appeals to you. And if if that’s something that doesn’t remotely appeal to you (perhaps quite likely), it’s still worth a listen.