52 minutes, 8 seconds

Front Line Assembly
Caustic Grip

Sometimes I wonder what younger listeners today think of so-called classics of the industrial genre. Do they sound dull and dated? Or still vibrant and exciting? Caustic Grip was the then-current Front Line Assembly album when I began listening to industrial music back in college. It wasn't the first FLA tape (yes, cassette tape--stop your snickering) I purchased--that would have been State of Mind--but it was considered state of the art back in those days. And I thought it was the shit.

Still do, in some ways. I can't listen to "Overkill," for example, without the hair on the back of my neck going up, especially when the sample kicks in: "The first jolt of electricity was sent through his body at..." And without being overly distorted, Bill Leeb's vocals pack a lot of punch, not just in "Overkill" but also in songs like "Iceolate" and "Mental Distortion."

But how would a 21-year-old today, one who'd been raised on Agonoize, Hocico, and the rest of the modern "hellektro" cabal, hear Caustic Grip? Would it be like a young Snoop Dogg fan hearing Run-DMC for the first time? Or am I exaggerating the musical distance between 1990 and 2007?

Also today:

52:07 Current 93, Live at Bar Maldoror
52:06 PAL, Modus
52:05 Einstürzende Neubauten, Strategies Against Architecture II (CD 2 of 2)
52:05 Rajna, The Door of Serenity
52:03 VNV Nation, Judgement
52:02 Ophelia's Dream, Not a Second Time
New arrival! 56:42 Grimbergen, A Lonely Place
52:02 Raison d'Être, Within the Depths of Silence and Phormations
52:02 Single Gun Theory, Exorcise This Wasteland
52:01 Gjallarhorn, Sjofn
52:01 :Wumpscut:, Evoke