Front 242 / Pulse
Album: Pulse   Collection:General
Artist:Front 242   Added:Jun 2003
Label:Metropolis Records  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2003-09-29 Pull Date: 2003-12-01 Charts: Electronic
Week Ending: Oct 26 Oct 19 Oct 12 Oct 5
Airplays: 1 1 1 1

Recent Airplay
1. Oct 23, 2003: Baptism Of Solitude
Pan Dhe Mlk
3. Oct 07, 2003: The Digital/Analog War
Never Lost
2. Oct 15, 2003: press and release
Never Lost
4. Sep 30, 2003: The Digital/Analog War
Triple X Girlfriend

Album Review
Gabe
Reviewed 2003-09-22
The erstwhile emperors of industrial beats married to fascistic (if ironically so) barked lyrics have taken some time off as meanwhile, their ouvre has aged poorly. Here the humorless Belgians return with an album that’s part Young Gods and part Tangerine Dream so one could argue that they have forgone the stale rehashing of their signature sound for plundering and appropriation of contemporaneous (and now equally out-of-favor) sonic trends. Still, if you were/are a fan of those trends … There are some sparse industrial soundscapes and some lush 1970s-style synths. Overall, surprisingly listenable, given how far past F242’s sell-by date we are. There are several sets of multiple tracks that should probably be played together. They’re indicated below.

Tracks 1-5 comprise the “PULSE” suite and run into each other so feel free to play all or else just go with track 5, which summarizes the piece.
1. Aggressive sequencer synthscape
2. Adds acid-y tweaks of the old Roland
3. Turns the agro down a bit
4. Yet more tweaky and drummy
5. Spacy shit on top of acid squiggles and increasingly in-your-face rhythms

6. Leaden old-school F242 rhythms and trademark menacing whisper vocals
7. Slow, cheesy-majestic
8. Sequencer bassline, glitched-vocals
9. Paradoxically quiet noisescape

“Song” suite
10. Ominous
11. Pulsating into powerful beats

“ONE” suite
12. Bouncy, hard beats and rhythm samples familiar to fans to Young Gods
13. Continuing into a stripped down acid house rhythm and noise track

“Matrix” suite
14. Borrowing from cut-up and glitch to piece together an attractive patchwork
15. Take the previous track and drop a 16-ton weight on it for added heavitude

“Never Lost” suite
16. Menacing buzz flying from side-to-side (stereophonically, I mean) while faux-normal piano plays a pseudo-classical refrain
17. Piano tinkles away as fuzzy Tangerine Dream 70s synth swirl washes in

“7RAIN”
18. More of that elegiac piano being swallowed by burbling bassline; too bad about the vocals ruining the mood

“PAN” suite
19. Bits of silence at start might confuse you into thinking there’s a CD player problem – don’t; soon, we’re into a Wonderland of squiggly synth bits; then …
20. Very precise and convincingly real-sounding drumming moves in and clears noodling away until a very incoherent ten seconds of talk closes out

Track Listing
1. SEQ666   6. Song
2. Together   7. One
3. Triple X Girlfriend   8. Matrix
4. No More no More   9. Never Lost
5. Beyond the Scale of Comp   10. 7RAIN
  11. Pan Dhe Mlk