Front 242 issue ‘Black Out’ on solid silver vinyl and Full Silver Pack
Front 242 press their farewell live album “Black Out” on solid silver 2LP and a Full Silver Pack bundle, out 25 September 2026 on Alfa Matrix.
Front 242, the Belgian electronic body music pioneers, now present their farewell live album “Black Out” on solid silver double vinyl as well, out on 25 September 2026 through Alfa Matrix. The new pressing follows the sold-out crystal clear and clear purple fanpack vinyl editions, and arrives alongside a Full Silver Pack bundle.
Table of contents
What the ‘Black Out’ silver editions include
Alfa Matrix pressed an additional 1,000 copies on solid silver vinyl after the earlier vinyl runs sold out ahead of the street date. The label states that demand was “nothing short of phenomenal”, with both the crystal clear transparent edition and the limited clear purple fanpack selling out before release. The solid silver 2LP carries 20 tracks across four sides and sells for 37,99 euro.
The Full Silver Pack collects the solid silver 2LP together with the “Black Out” 2CD digipak, the Front 242 tribute “Recovery For You 2” on 2CD, and the label samplers “Sounds From The Matrix 26” and “Sounds From The Matrix 27”. Both editions are open for pre-order and street on 25 September 2026.
Front 242, the ‘Black Out’ live album
“Black Out” documents Front 242’s final tour, recorded at AB Brussels (Ancienne Belgique) in January 2025 during the band’s last hometown shows. Side-Line covered the album and its seven formats on its first release in June 2026. The set draws on a farewell run of more than 40 performances across six months in Europe and the USA, and includes the first official releases of three tracks the band had played live in recent years: “Generator”, “Fix It” and “Hide and Seek”.
On stage for the recording, Patrick Codenys, Jean-Luc De Meyer and Richard 23 were joined by Tim Kroker on drums, with David Baboulis of SOLDOUT handling the studio mix and production. The double vinyl runs 20 tracks across four sides – “W.Y.H.I.W.Y.G.”, “Moldavia”, “Body to Body”, “Don’t Crash”, “Operating Tracks”, “U-Men”, “Funkhadafi”, “Quite Unusual”, “Generator”, “Commando Mix”, “Gripped by Fear”, “Take One”, “Red Team”, “Fix It”, “Punish your Machine”, “Tragedy for You”, “Hide and Seek”, “Welcome to Paradise”, “Happiness” and “HeadHunter”. The 2CD digipak extends the set to 23 tracks with three exclusives, “MasterHit”, “Soul Manager” and “No Shuffle”.
The band paired the farewell with a short statement. “It is with a heavy mix of emotion that we close this great adventure, some 40 years in the making. We realize that ending our journey at this time, when we are still vibrant and full of energy is how the band should be remembered,” Front 242 said when they announced the final tour.
About Front 242
Front 242 formed in 1981 in Belgium, founded by Daniel Bressanutti and Dirk Bergen. Patrick Codenys and Jean-Luc De Meyer soon joined, and Richard 23 completed the classic four-piece in 1982. The band were among the pioneers of electronic body music, and used the term as a self-description on the 1984 album “No Comment”.
Across the following decades Front 242 released “Geography” (1982), “No Comment” (1984), “Official Version” (1987) and “Front by Front” (1988), the album that carried “Headhunter”, followed by “Tyranny (For You)” (1991), the paired “06:21:03:11 Up Evil” and “05:22:09:12 Off” (1993) and “Pulse” (2003). Daniel Bressanutti stepped back from touring in 2018, and the group played its final concerts at Front 242’s hometown venue AB Brussels in January 2025. “Black Out” documents those shows, and the solid silver 2LP and Full Silver Pack are its newest editions.
Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can - and we refuse to add annoying advertising. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.
