eMusic Review 0
How appropriate that Atari Teenage Riot's first album in forever was cut at a home studio called the Hellish Vortex. After all, the band's digital hardcore attack hasn't dulled one bit in the many years that separate their vicious mid-'90s run — riot-starting singles like "Deutschland (Has Gotta Die!)," "Destroy 2000 Years of Culture" and "Sick To Death" — and the battery acid beats/synth-chased sloganeering of Is This Hyperreal?. If anything, ATR's founding frontman (producer/vocalist Alec Empire) and longtime collaborator Nic Endo have reminded us of one thing…loudly: how they predated the frayed, electro-shocked noise-pop of such blog-stirring artists as Sleigh Bells and Crystal Castles by more than a decade. You have to willingly embrace their bleak, bruised, Berlin-borne worldview to enjoy it all, though, whether we're talking about the crushed keys and tension-ratcheting rhythms of "Blood In My Eyes" or the rail-jumping riffs and CX Kidtronik-backed call-to-arms choruses of "Activate!" To listen is to watch the world slowly crumble around you, but hey, at least they've got something of substance to say, right?
