Front Line Assembly – Hard Wired

On Hard Wired, Bill and Rhys managed to create some of their finest work that in many ways has not been fully realized in later FLA albums (as a whole). This was the era of FLA that also produced one of their most memorable singles, Plasticity, which unfortunately Bill and Rhys chose to release separately from the album (per Bill, this was a business decision since it gave people incentive to buy the single).

Complaints aside from Plasticity's absence, Hard Wired is a solid piece of work. While it uses a TNI meets Millenium formula throughout the album, the way it is executed is near perfection. All the songs flow together well, and they all have great hooks, memorable choruses and a distinct strength that just gives you that zap of electricity and power that makes you feel like Bill is in command of a massive fleet of cybernetically augmented soldiers and he's going to destroy all of humanity while looking like a badass.

The song "Neologic Spasm" also deserves special mention as it is one of the best songs that Bill and Rhys have ever made. It is a pure electronic song (which makes it stand out especially since most of the album is a cyber punk, EBM metal fest), but it features an amazingly powerful bass line, dark memorable lyrics and a very addictive and powerful chorus that clearly evokes the song's drowning motif. This song alone is worth the price of ission.

All the other songs on the album are strong and stand on their own. Circuitry though does deserve special mention since it does a magnificent job acting as the centerpiece thanks to its extensive usage of electronics and samples, giving you the feel of being a cybernetically augmented killing machine with electricity flowing through your body. I will also note that Infrared Combat in particular is of the best "ballad" style closing numbers that FLA have ever put together. It is with this that Bill managed to, in my opinion, perfect what he was aiming for with songs like Lifeline and Threshold.

I could continue speaking praise for Hard Wired, but at this point I think you can understand why I rate this 5/5. While it's a shame that it get overshadowed by TNI and Millenium (which are still great albums), you can see from the other releases that it the labels have considered it a classic. Needless to say, this is in league with FLA's other best releases and should be included in anyone's collection if they consider themselves a fan of the band.