Headhunter

The international breakthrough for Front 242 came in 1987 following the signing to Wax Trax in the United States and Red Rhino in Europe with the release of the single “Interception” and the albums “Backcatalogue” and “Official Version”. The “Backcatalogue” album does exactly what it says and collects the earlier 242 singles. “Official Version” however had a busier sound picture in contrast to the minimalism of the first two studio albums. Quite Unusual is the late-album highlight, taking the 242 concepts into a slightly more tuneful, radio-friendly direction. Until you get the apocalyptic tone of the lyrics and realise that far from selling out, they’ve actually sneaked one in under the radar.

The big single from the album “Front To Front” was quite obviously Headhunter. When asked during an interview about the concept for the song, Jean-Luc De Meyer replied, "I had the chance to work in an insurance company before, and I worked in the department of human resources and I saw the way that this company was trying to hire people. It was very polite and very nice with men in suits, but at the same time it was very cut-throat. I wanted to make a parallel between tribal warfare and these activities. The song means both of these activities."

1 - You Lock The Target

2 - You Bait The Line

3 - You Slowly Spread The Net

And

4 - You Catch The Man

That distinctive synth line, born after a ‘happy accident’ with a sampler, is iconic; the layers of percussion make it a natural choice for any industrially-fuelled dancefloor, whilst the lyrics provide the catchiest of refrains from the least likely of sources. The standout to me has always been Welcome to Paradise, perhaps the most poignant use of subversive criticism. Here, the rock-solid sequencers are overlaid with samples of Farrell Griswold, one of the most zealous of the Southern Baptist preachers as it ridicules the church’. It is a thrilling listen, and an industrial classic in its own right.

No Comment 242

With the recruitment of Richard 23 to fill out the classic line-up, Front 242 started consolidating its strengths with the No Comment EP. Kicking off with the full nine-minute hit of "Commando Mix," the quartet took the best parts of Geography for a starting point and whipped up a smart, tight selection of songs that start to have their own identity as Front 242, straight up. "No Shuffle," with its straightforward, brutal drum punches and heavy distortion, not to mention de Meyer's cold pronouncing of the lyrics, is particularly fine. "Special Forces," which appears in a "nomenklatura" instrumental remix as well, isn't much different but just as effective, de Meyer and 23 trading off in the manner that would characterize many of the band's later hits. A couple of cuts still seem almost too polite in comparison to later efforts, but while "Lovely Day" may have an actual romantic theme to it, the combination of the two vocalists' work and the screeching synth break make appropriately unsettling results. The 1992 re-release, besides a fine remastering job, also includes four bonus cuts from various sources. A re-recorded version of "Body to Body" beats out the original take by a mile, while the two live cuts from a show in Ghent are reasonable enough if not particularly revelatory. Adding yet another run through of "Special Forces" (the demo session in this instance) was probably doing too much, however.

Geography 242

Listening to Geography in the 21st century is a surprising experience in ways; one can tell exactly who's making the music, but things were still incredibly different at the start for Front 242. That said, the edge of the band is fully present, but the sheer amped-up level of brute aggression isn't. As a self-consciously modernist electronic body music act, though, Front 242 made a good debut, with a lot of the familiar elements of the group -- de Meyer's disembodied, passionless voice, Codenys and Daniel B's ears for threatening atmospherics -- in place. The Depeche Mode comparisons are understandable (check out the synth stabs and general pace of "U-Men" for a good example) but not perfectly accurate. Lyrically, Front 242's focus is mostly turned well away from love and religious imagery in favour of cryptic threats, though the THX 1138-sampling "GVDT" is calm and playful enough to imagine David Gahan singing it. A good demonstration of where Front 242 was at can be heard with the first two songs. While "Operating Tracks" adds enough white noise and full percussion slams to indicate the future, "With Your Cries" isn't all that removed from what Kraftwerk had already done. From there the quartet keep bouncing back and forth, sometimes offering up flashes of real inspiration but often indulging in the kind of random noodling that gave early-'80s industrial/dance music something of a bad name. That a number of the tracks are fragmentary instrumentals doesn't help, though they can make for nice enough mood music, and the rough recording quality actually helps in that regard.