In the interest of sanity, i bring you Alec Empire, king and ruler of all Digital Hardcore, well yes and no, founder of Atari Teenage Riot (the hardcore techno band … or digital hardcore band), he sure created it, but as a solo artist his moods and tastes have a more diverse pallet, now “The Destroyer” is one of my favorites, simply because its the one closest to being digital hardcore, sure it doesn’t have the political punk derived shouting or the abuse of distorted guitars, but instead it has loads of old school samples and over the top breakbeats, what isn’t to like?
Being Digital Hardcore it’s difficult to pinpoint all the nice parts, but for the interest of this review i can make some highlights, the album starts we “We all die!” and this one sets the pace flawlessly, grabbing you with samples of girls screaming and high speed hip hop beats, “Suicide” is another pleasure with an almost abusive use of the “amen break” variations (old school yeahh), “I Just Wanna Destroy…” its a downbeat section very interesting because of all the distortion and speed up jungle beats, “Nobody Get’s Out Alive” starts the hyper speed breakbeats, its so fun to see him trying to just squeeze some more “bpm”’s, “My Body Cannot Die” goes on the same road, more speed more aggression, this leads to “The Peak” and the name says it all, probably the fastest track on the album and for sure the most aggressive one, it’s just so self indulgent, in a good way, “Heartbeat That Isn’t Here” is almost a ATR track only without the vocals, the album goes on with some more interesting tracks, like “Pleasure Is Our Business”.
Well what to say, this album is like a drum machine gone bad, to the point of becoming an “acquired taste”, so it might not be that appealing, why? well, most of times it’s just a out of your mind blast with no interest apart from speed, i know its a 1996 release but it’s as fresh today as it was back then and it is a pleasure to listen to all of those super-fast “amen break” breakbeats, i have a smile on my face, why don’t you have one?
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