Apologies in advance as I do not wish to offend anyone concerning this very personnal review. This is strictly my viewpoint, or rather, original emotional reaction to an otherwise great F.L.A. album.
Around the time of the album's release I was already beginning to "phase out" industrial/dust/aggro/EBM in this particular form, feeling that many of the big names of the era were increasingly getting more commercial. However I had been a fan of the band ever since "The Initial Command" and "State Of Mind" and had followed pretty much all their releases since then.
What did not help matters in my disassociation with the band was that I thought this album was beginning to steal from their own material, and running out of the proverbial steam. Although the tracks on this album were now exceptionally well produced, it did not hide the fact that I felt as though they were starting to repeat their more user-friendly formulae which began around the time of the "Disorder" EP (as always, in my own opinion of course)
track 1: "Final Impact" was a strong opener which I always thought was a strange way to begin the album as it seemed to be a song a bit un-connected to the rest of the album, save for the production values of course.
track 2: "The Blade" is when things started to lose my interest, mainly for the use of the "Phantom Drummer" loop which was quite the craze at the time in radio/commercial music. That and the general "light" feeling the track had as a whole, as though it was essentially designed to be a crowd pleaser, not disimilar to a band being forced to churn out a hit single.
track 3: "Mindphaser" lost me since I always thought it was a rip-off of their own track, "No Limit" from "Gashed Senses & Crossfire" (https://www.discogs.com/Front-Line-Assembly-Gashed-Senses-Crossfire/master/1417). Maybe it was just me but the song seems to have the same chord pattern and both these tracks could easily be made into one, or a mash-up of sorts.
After this I knew that the only reason I would continue on would be as out a sense of loyalty to the band and the Investment I made in shelling out for this disc (at a minimum wave job of the era).
I recall how I would have discussions with friends who also were FLA fans, and how their own interest kept diminishing with each new album, one of whom was a purist of the first releases and couldn't be bothered with anything that came afterwards, and another started losing interest around the time of "Digital Tension Dementia", noting the continual and increasing approach towards making their sound much more "dance-floor friendly".
Although I actually purchased the following album ("Millennium"), I completely "grew out" of FLA after that. And thought "Tactical Neural Implant" was a decent effort, especially in terms of production values and the general tone and direction the band was heading towards, as well as both fine-tuning their evolving sound and remaining faithful to their target audience, I knew that behind all the glitz and glamour and the dizzying display of perfectly programmed controlled mayhem, I just was not feeling it anymore and couldn't continue to pretend I was a fan of their work... Well at leqast until "Bio-Mechanic" comes along, a stand-out piece alongside "Final Impact".
Around the time of the album's release I was already beginning to "phase out" industrial/dust/aggro/EBM in this particular form, feeling that many of the big names of the era were increasingly getting more commercial. However I had been a fan of the band ever since "The Initial Command" and "State Of Mind" and had followed pretty much all their releases since then.
What did not help matters in my disassociation with the band was that I thought this album was beginning to steal from their own material, and running out of the proverbial steam. Although the tracks on this album were now exceptionally well produced, it did not hide the fact that I felt as though they were starting to repeat their more user-friendly formulae which began around the time of the "Disorder" EP (as always, in my own opinion of course)
track 1: "Final Impact" was a strong opener which I always thought was a strange way to begin the album as it seemed to be a song a bit un-connected to the rest of the album, save for the production values of course.
track 2: "The Blade" is when things started to lose my interest, mainly for the use of the "Phantom Drummer" loop which was quite the craze at the time in radio/commercial music. That and the general "light" feeling the track had as a whole, as though it was essentially designed to be a crowd pleaser, not disimilar to a band being forced to churn out a hit single.
track 3: "Mindphaser" lost me since I always thought it was a rip-off of their own track, "No Limit" from "Gashed Senses & Crossfire" (https://www.discogs.com/Front-Line-Assembly-Gashed-Senses-Crossfire/master/1417). Maybe it was just me but the song seems to have the same chord pattern and both these tracks could easily be made into one, or a mash-up of sorts.
After this I knew that the only reason I would continue on would be as out a sense of loyalty to the band and the Investment I made in shelling out for this disc (at a minimum wave job of the era).
I recall how I would have discussions with friends who also were FLA fans, and how their own interest kept diminishing with each new album, one of whom was a purist of the first releases and couldn't be bothered with anything that came afterwards, and another started losing interest around the time of "Digital Tension Dementia", noting the continual and increasing approach towards making their sound much more "dance-floor friendly".
Although I actually purchased the following album ("Millennium"), I completely "grew out" of FLA after that. And thought "Tactical Neural Implant" was a decent effort, especially in terms of production values and the general tone and direction the band was heading towards, as well as both fine-tuning their evolving sound and remaining faithful to their target audience, I knew that behind all the glitz and glamour and the dizzying display of perfectly programmed controlled mayhem, I just was not feeling it anymore and couldn't continue to pretend I was a fan of their work... Well at leqast until "Bio-Mechanic" comes along, a stand-out piece alongside "Final Impact".
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