Rhys Fulber and Bill Leeb, the coalition of minds behind Front Line Assembly, team up one final time on this release, which is, as its title suggests, a freakish hodge-podge of parts that make up a monstrous whole. Not that the flesh is all that grotesque. Like the chart-topping Karma, this album has been imbued with an ethereal atmosphere and a fantastic romanticism that would make Sarah McLachlan proud. It also strives to bring disparate cultures and musical styles together, at times successfully and at others, far less satisfyingly. The most notable failure is “Forever After”, which scratches an out-of-place sample into a folky guitar riff which has been laid over Arabic percussion and string orchestration. Sultana, the vocalist, sings her epic heart out—and even raps on a few occasions—but sadly, we wonder if she hasn’t been the victim of a practical joke. What’s next, flamenco to a polka beat?
Still, for all of its awkwardness, several tracks on the album really do succeed in bringing different worlds together. In “Fallen”, spacy synthesizations are framed in a latin theme, grounded by the gravity of lush strings and wistful lyrics.
Leigh Nash guest stars on the next track, “Orbit of Me”, which opens where the previous track ended, with a lackadaisical revolving beat, cool ambience, warm guitar strums, and more palatably interspersed hiphop décor. “Magic” throws bar-worn vocals reminiscent of a less seedy Eartha Kitt into intergalactic 50’s bachelor pad lounge and occasionally intersperses the mystique of voodoo beats for good measure.
Nevertheless, the real winners on the album are the two ambient pieces, “Serenity” and “Eternal Oddyssey” which are not bogged down by too many conflicting body parts and really do take you to far off places, and the more accessible and clubworthy “Truly” (likely to yield great remixes) which lays bassy acid over the singalong vocals of Nerina Pallet.
Like the mythic monster Chimaera, this album is ugly in its whole but some of its parts are beautiful on their own.
