Berlin born former Atari Teenage Riot head honcho ALEC EMPIRE kicks the s**t out of music in preference to actually playing it. In his sonic world the “sound of the street” really is the sound of men digging up roads with heavy machinery, teeth smashing in police baton to rioter's face interface with perhaps the odd car crash thrown in for good measure.
Impossible to listen to these four tracks and not be in mind of Nine Inch Nails although EMPIRE seems to have more of a rock ‘n’ roll heart and there is something of the primal blues instincts of Jon Spencer. His use of technology is also disarmingly basic and relatively lo-fi with a greater emphasis on the buzz-saw of guitars than the purring hum of state-of-the-art computer generated glitches or the fake sweat aroused by gimmicky chrome production (as favoured by the likes of Garbage).
Main track ‘Kiss of Death’ opens with a sampled voice claiming “I’m talking about the death of rock ‘n’ roll” after which EMPIRE gives us a digital hardcore version of some kind of “Oi!” punk track: so far so rock ‘n’ roll. ‘Night of Violence’ sounds like Rage Against The Machine while the comparatively noise-less ‘XXV3’ prowls and pouts like a wounded panther. Final track ‘Uproar’ is exactly that although I can’t help but think that Blur’s ‘Song 2’ seemed to take this kind of thing to its natural conclusion eight years ago.
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The net effect of EMPIRE’s music is to leave your head mashed to a pulp: if there is any part of your brain unaffected it’s probably trying to tell you to check that that bottle of Nurofen in the cupboard isn’t empty.
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