Front Line Assembly – The Initial Command

This should be seen without no doubt as Front Line Assembly's best Album, because of its sheer bleakness and raw technological beauty. FLA sounds on this Album still fresh and pure, and not so retractet like on latter Albums like Tactical Neural Implant and so on...

First heard Nine Times on a 10" sampler and was immediately hooked. The initial Command is a primitive dark EBM masterpiece that has stood the test of time, even the heavy KK vinyl release seemed to have a weight that other similar EBM releases lacked.

I will never forget my « initial » introduction to F.L.A.; my best friend at the time came back from Dutchy’s record store (R.I.P.; was an underground institution in Montreal, semi-similarly as Bunker records) and being a “rental” member (one could rent out records and tapes for a week’s time) came back with this LP, after we had both stumbled upon “No Control” from an underground radio show at the time.

We both were stunned at this “new sound” we hadn’t been exposed to. We thought Skinny Puppy and Front 242 were “the sh*t” in of cold industrial music (we were still novices back in those days), and weren’t ready for this record, which to this day remains a testament to this period in time. Never before had we heard so coldly calculated machinic maddening repetition with such a drive and fervor; this was the purest form of “industrial” (or so we thought) - music seemingly designed to induce unease and a perpetual sence of anxiousness and dread. And even today, whenever I re-visit this album, an uncanny sensation of stress envelops me, reminding me of those early days of pre-dancefloor EBM assault.

“The Initial Command” is a serious must listen to any fan of the band, at the very least to hear where they came from. With “Total Terror 1 + 2” readily available, we can more easily hear the genesis of the post-Puppy Leeb, and even elements from those archival collections can be heard on this album. Although the general sound of F.L.A. would slowly mutate with each subsequent album released afterwards, it is still important to understand where they came from and the other directions the project itself could have explored instead of what they chose to focus on.

Not for everyone as this early entry in the band’s repertoire may be misunderstood as a necessary birth pain, to some of us it remains, alongside the follow-up “State Of Mind”, one of the most representative acheivements of a band just starting off on their long journey. I personnaly recommend it hands down and would still consider this a great industrial album from start to finish.

Nine times was the one that got me..Came across this album in 1990 (Australia)
I don't think I'll ever get sick of it either..

This is THE FLA-album for me. I bought it in 1987, and I fell in love with Black March & Nine Times (they are still in rotation in my mp3-player).

I think this is one of FLA's better albums. Very dark and deep EBM, and some of the tracks sound Cabaret Voltaire-like almost, circa 'Crackdown' only deeper (at least in my opinion). The whole album is like a trip, but side 2 is noticeably a little more dancey. It's not as hard or fast as alot of other EBM stuff, but it's really a beautiful work of industrial music. "Black March" and "No Control" sort of forecast the harder stuff they would do closer to the nineties, and I don't know if fans of their later work would like this album, but it's still worth getting just for the overall futuristic and dark tone and mood the whole album sets, if not the music itself.