Alec Empire - Destroyer
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CD Details
Artist: Alec EmpireEdition: Music CD
Format: Import, Original recording reissued
CD Release Date: 2000-07-04
Music Label: Digital Hardcore
Soundtracks:
- Hard Like It's A Pose
- What Are You Talking About
- Down With The Shit
- We All Die!
- Suicide
- Bang Your Head!
- Heartbeat That Isn't There
- Nobody Get's Out ALive
- Fire Bombing
- The Peak
- Bonus Beats
- I Don't Care What Happens
- My Face Would Crack
- Pleasure Is Our Business (Live!)
Music reviews of Destroyer
Music Review: Harsh, digital distortion with manic beats. What's not to like?
Rating: 4 Stars
My introduction to Alec Empire and Digital Hardcore aesthetic was through Atari Teenage Riot. Since I'm a fan of the latter, I decided to check out Empire's solo stuff. Since I'm guessing a lot of potential listeners were similarly introduced to his music through ATR, I'll start off with some comparisons. The familiar distortion covers everything and is, at times, even more aggressive than ATR typical sound, if you can imagine such a thing. The song tempos are varied, unlike ATR's approach - fast and faster. There are manic jungle beats, pummeling gabber, and even some slower breakbeats. The biggest difference is the lack of guitar and vocals.
I get the feeling Empire is to ATR as Liam Howlett is to the Prodigy - he writes and programs the tracks while the band mates show up and contribute screaming vocals. His compositional direction doesn't seem all that much different. But the interesting thing is, as superfluous as his band mates may be, there is a difference in that on a song-to-song basis, ATR tracks tend to have real personality, whereas Empire's work on this CD tends to sound monochromatic when you listen to it straight through.
Part of it might be the lack of a central theme. With ATR, we have things like revolution, dissent, angst, and speed that form the bulk of the thematic material. Of course they're not original themes, but they ARE effective. Moreover, they tend to cohere into individual songs more easily than Alec's solo material, on this album at least. Maybe I miss the guitar. Maybe I like the vocals better than the samples that seem to replace them here.
Whatever the issue is, I guess I prefer ATR to Empire solo. It seems like there's more variety, in a strange way. I enjoy dipping into The Destroyer for one or two tracks at a time, but on the occasions that I've listened to the whole CD in one sitting, my ears got fatigued and things started to blend together. They didn't fatigued because of the noise. I listen to Merzbow all the time. It was entirely because everything ended up being too similar.
Maybe I'm being too critical here. I would still recommend all ATR fans check this out. It's very brutal and as far as harsh digital distortion with beats goes, Alec Empire is the man. From what I understand, this compilation gives a nice overview of his prolific solo career. I think if I was to buy another CD, it would probably be a proper album as there is sure to be more variance. Incidentally, if anyone has recommendations, please leave me a comment.
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