Search - Front Line Assembly :: Prophecy

Paralysis GOOD! The rest, however...

07/04/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"First and foremost, there are five tracks to this cd single. There are three versions of Prophecy, one being a radio edit (dubbed 'radio one'), one being the original, and the final being a 'yk2000 mix'. There is also a radit edit of Unknown Dreams (dubbed 'radio two') and an unreleased track entitled Paralysis. I must say, it took me about nine months to finally convice myself to buy this album. Every time I walked into a record store I remembered what a great album 'Implode' was, but then looked at the track listing and wondered if it was really worth it. While a five track single is very solid - and initially very interesting considering its origin - I guess you have to look closer at what the tracks really are. For instance, whenever there's a mention of a radio/edit, always remember that the song is nothing more than an abridged original version. So that takes care of both 'Unknown Dreams' & a radio version of 'Prophecy' (seriously, are edits ever really that interesting?). You can "ignore" the regular version of 'Prophecy' as it's just the album version with two sections looped an additional time for extended length (I believe, although it just may be the album version - it's really quite hard to tell). But again, nothing new. One would think a mix of 'Prophecy' could be really good, but the one on this single is really quite basic. Remember the 'Comatose' single and its similar sounding mixes? Same problem hear. Some additional beats and quirky programming, but not enough to really distinguish the mix as being too interesting. The real gem here is 'Paralysis'. Imagine an instrumental 'Plasticity' mixed w/ Decoder era Noise Unit, placed on Implode and that's 'Paralysis'. An extremely good song that would have seemed out of place on the album, but is great on this single. The song continues the tradition of good b-sides on FLA singles. If you're the casual FLA fan, start with Implode, purchase some of their backcatalogue, and then buy Prophecy - because it IS worth getting. If you're a more devout FLA fan, definitely pick this up, but don't expect a bunch of new tracks."