Over the years, the form of the work changed, in the nineties guitars began to play a more prominent role in it, only to return to a purely synthetic sound.
The group was founded by Bill Leeb, the singer of another brutally industrial electronic Vancouver band, Skinny Puppy, who was assisted by other musicians from the rapidly developing EBM scene, especially synthesizer player and programmer Rhys Fulber, who regularly left Front Line Assembly, then returned to them and works there today.
Back in 1987, they were behind the songs on their first album, The Initial Command, and Fulber also plays on 1990’s breakthrough Caustic Grip.
In the meantime, however, another programmer Michael Balch became a member of the group, with whom Leeb recorded the records State Of Mind, Corrosion and Gashed Senses & Crossfire, which drew heavily on the legacy of early Skinny Puppy and the Belgian Front 242.
Change lineup
Another breakthrough came in the second half of the nineties, when Chris Peterson became Leeb’s collaborator, which was reflected in the softer sound of the Implode and Epitaph albums.
However, Leeb did not stop collaborating with Fulber either, with whom he founded the subsidiary project Delerium in 1987, closer to ambient electronics. Paradoxically, they celebrated their greatest success with him, the single Silence with singer Sarah McLachlan reached number three in the UK charts and is still considered a key trance record.
Fulber temporarily returned to the group in the middle of the first decade of the new millennium, with Leeb recording the more emphatic opus Civilisation.
The current tour is for the two-year-old Mechanical Soul record, which features guest appearances from Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares and Front 242’s Jean-Luc de Meyer.
