Bill Leeb has gotta be one of the busiest people in the music industry. Compiling tracks from Leeb- related bands, Cryogenic Studios is about the tenth Leeb release to have been released this year, prior to a Leeb- involved Frontline Assembly mini-tour of the west coast and more releases to come. Some people never sleep.

Cryogenic Studios has been packaged as an offering from Frontline Assembly, Bill Leeb, Friends and Company, but in reality, is simply an outlet for Leeb to remix tracks released by his pals. Synaethesia, Pro>Tech, Equinox, Frontline Assembly have made the cut this time around, and so have the finally recognized Delerium, whose 1994 album Semantic Spaces recently received the attention it deserved by spending several weeks bouncing around high- ranking positions on the college charts.

But while the album contains a number of permutations of band members, there is a surprising amount of consistency from track to track. Long-time Frontline Assembly listeners will be shocked at the rather un-industrial offerings found on the album, and confused to find that not only is "Equilibrium" an instrumental, but that it blends right in with the trancy Equinox song before it.

The one obvious complaint, however, is that the guest artists aren't going to gain any new fans by having contributed to the album, solely because the songs are too stylistically similar to differentiate between what parts belong to the original song and what parts have been added by Leeb for remix purposes. Of course, that doesn't subtract from how great the music is, it just sucks for the contributing artists.

By keeping with a general theme of intricate electronic composition, Cryogenic Studios grooves by with little notice of personnel changes and provides the listener with intelligent and involved listening. Each song is constructed with layer upon layer of musical events, engaging the ear into trying to sort out everything that's going on, but without becoming muddy or overproduced.

So, forget the whole "compilation album" label, just think of this as a big electronic supergroup with alternating members organized by Bill Leeb. With all he's done recently, the man probably has no social life, but he can help turn out some damn fine tunes.

-Skaht Hansen

Frontline Assembly: "Equilibrium"

[Real Audio Stream]