Bill Leeb has spent nearly four decades shaping electronic music from behind other people's names, first as a founding member of Skinny Puppy, then as the driving force of Front Line Assembly, and later as one half of the ambient pop project Delerium, alongside work in Noise Unit, Intermix, and Cyberaktif. Model Kollapse, released in 2024, is his first true solo statement since those earliest bedroom recordings he made and distributed on cassette in the mid-80s, a full circle moment for one of industrial music's most prolific architects. Recorded across Vancouver, Toronto, and Los Angeles with production help from Dream Bullet and longtime FLA and Delerium collaborator Rhys Fulber, plus regular mixing engineer Greg Reely, the album is hard edged but unmistakably melodic, built around actual songs rather than atmosphere for its own sake. Tracks like "Demons," "Neuromotive," and "Simulation" carry the DNA of pioneers like DAF and Front 242, and of Skinny Puppy itself, while guest spots from Shannon Hemmett on "Terror Forms" and ACTORS on "Muted Obsession" push the record toward the darkwave and synth adjacent sounds that acts like Gesaffelstein and ADULT. have carried forward in recent years. Closer "Erosion Through Time," featuring Mimi Page, brings the record to a fittingly wide screen finish. This edition is pressed on limited bleach pattern vinyl at 45 RPM, limited to 500 copies, housed in an extra heavy gatefold sleeve with separate printed inner sleeves, a serious package for a record that closes a very long loop in Leeb's career.
