I've read accusations of Front By Front being too mainstream and too little EBM. I do not agree to these proposals. In my book FBF is one of Front's finest albums, where everything comes together in a higher order. Moreover, where other F2 releases often contain a track or two that doesn't grab me, each and every track on FBF has something to offer. Sure, one may miss the long and epic tracks of Official Version and other Front releases, but concentrating all their energy and ideas in 4 minute long tracks certainly proved worthwhile. Focus is never lost. For the sake of F2's legacy one can only regret that nor with this album did they get the appraisal that acts that they have fathered, notably, Prodigy and Massive Attack, has. Front 242 was there long before! In any case, this is an album fans of electronic music should most certainly own. And some trivia: Film freaks might find it interesting that quite a few samples on FBF are taken from Danish director Lars von Trier's 1984 movie "The Element Of Crime" (Forbrydelsens Element); "Is this the kind of work you'd like to do", "We have agreed to try hypnosis", "Water, water, everywhere" etc.

Nice review, but Front 242 did not "father" The Prodigy or Massive Attack.In the case of The Prodigy, there may have been some inspiration from Front 242 but there was more from Belgian Techno than EBM. Just listen to ANY early Prodigy track and you'll find much more influence from the likes of Frank de Wulf & Spectrum than Front 242. Of course these Belgian Techno acts were influenced by EBM but it is a stretch too far to link The Prodigy directly to Front 242.As for Massive Attack, I am not sure of any link at all.