Pop Music Reviews : Front 242 Rallies Senses at the Palace

European art rebels Front 242 looked like European art-movie punk villains at their Palace concert Friday, but the Belgian industrial-dance band performed with something of the heavy-metal domination of a Judas Priest. Jolted into crouching, simian dances, shades-wearing front-men Richard 23 and Jean-Luc DeMeyer prodded and pumped up the crowd until it moved like a single creature.

A huge, scaffold-like structure towered menacingly at the center of the stage, like the innards ripped from the core of a skyscraper, its fan blades turning slowly in the middle. TV monitors occasionally displayed rubbery, distorted human faces. As the monster beats of their computerized disco rolled on with relentless force, the show took on the tone of a mass rally crossed with a sense-rending ritual.

Although the vocal clarity and outright tunefulness of their new album “Tyranny for You” weren’t transfered to the stage, the group’s sense of spectacle and its willingness to be catchy could make it the Pet Shop Boys of industrial dance-rock.