Improvised Electronic Device is the fourteenth full-length studio album by Vancouver industrial band Front Line Assembly, released in 2010.
Writing and production
According to band leader Bill Leeb there was no theme from which the album took form. "Everyone just started doing stuff", he said in an interview with Auxiliary Magazine, emphasizing how the band was influenced by their surroundings, "I don't know if it's just the times we live in or the stuff going on around us. Whether you read the internet or watch the news or whether you just talk to people. It just seems like it ended up being a theme of predominance, world issues." Leeb cited travelling with the band as important inspiration, mentioning trips to Russia as example: "Front Line has always liked iconic symbolism and going to countries like that really inspired me lyrically." "It seemed like wherever we looked there was something for us to get into. We didn't have to make up any stories or create anything that wasn't already in front of us.", he concluded. Similarly, the album title arose from the band's perception of the outside world. Guitarist Jared Slingerland said in a conversation with The Rumpus, "I mean, I.E.D., it's obvious what it is, but because it's still kind of a sensitive issue, Bill came up with the idea of 'electronic device.' There's obviously some overlap there."
In interviews, Bill Leeb went into more detail of some songs. "Afterlife" reflects Leeb's relationship with his father and themes like mortality. To Release Magazine he talked about the song's background: "When we moved to Canada, I didn't have any contact with my dad. It took me twenty years to hunt him down, and on the last tour of Europe we finally hooked up. He said he wanted to come to Canada, which I thought was cool. After two days, I found out he had leukemia. It took me twenty years to find him, and then he died after seven weeks." For Leeb, the lyrics also constituted a new approach. "The song is very personal. I usually write about more general stuff [...], so it's the first time I wrote such personal lyrics, and I wasn't sure if Front Line was the right place for it, but I figured what the hell, it's my band." The song "Angriff" was inspired by the band's visits in Russia and "is peculiar in that the chorus is performed in German", as noted music magazine Side-Line. Leeb attributed this choice to his Austrian origin: "Actually, since I was born and raised in Vienna, Austria, German was always my first language, it only seemed natural to eventually reclaim my heritage and do a song in my mother tongue."
Leeb described Improvised Electronic Device as "the most difficult album to put together", which also "took almost three years to make, the longest out of any Front Line album ever." The band wrote songs for about six months in the first year and then decided to abstain from writing for some time. "We'd never done that before, [...] see if you still liked the record.", explained Leeb. Writing being on hiatus, Leeb tried to bring in former member Rhys Fulber, which led to confusion with the other band members. "It created chaos with the rest of the guys", remembered Leeb, "We tried to get Rhys but he was too busy [...], and it wasn't fair to the other guys". Finally, the band resumed writing and "by the time Rhys was available we felt like the album was done and there really wasn't any room for anyone to put anything else on it."
The album saw some change of personnel. While it turned out to be the last Front Line Assembly album to feature Chris Peterson, live guitarist Jared Slingerland became permanent member and was fully involved in writing. With Greg Reely and Ken Marshall sharing mixing responsibilities it was "the first time we used two engineers/producers", said Leeb and added, "Ken brought a lot of his own ideas into the mixing aspect." Another contributor was Justin Hagberg of Canadian heavy metal band 3 Inches of Blood who not only played guitar on three tracks but also co-wrote the tracks "Release" and "Stupidity". Al Jourgensen contributed to the latter as well. Contact to Jourgensen came about through Jeremy Inkel, who had toured with his other band Left Spine Down as supporting act for Jourgensen's side project Revolting Cocks. He had "ended up becoming friends with Al and his wife", said Leeb, "So he asked if Al wanted to do anything, but Al only wanted to do it if he heard it first. So we sent a track to him and he liked it. [...] He did the vocals, as well as produced it in his studio in Chicago." The track is also a tribute to Wax Trax, whose co-founder Dannie Flesher died in 2010.