Atari Teenage Riot

So, you've been on the road for a year. In that time you've flirted with psychological instability and ingested just about every illicit substance that the music industry has thrown at you. You've fought internally and externally, all while being heralded as the voice of a new generation, even though, in reality, you'd have a hard time holding down a job at Burger King. It's the last night of a gruelling tour and all you can think of, besides jumping from the window of your hotel room, is how to fuck the system one more time. What do you do? Make your last show a tribute to Merzbow and see how far you can push the P.A. system. Alec Empire and friends experienced and lived the above madness and this, the last show of their world tour, was not what anyone was expecting. Instead of the familiar up-tempo digital hardcore, Empire, Carl Crack and Nic Endo (Henin was too ill to step on stage) laid down half-an-hour of Japanese power electronic noise, then went home. The fact that this was done in front of 8,000 people and they were opening for Nine Inch Nails only makes this all the more enjoyable, in theory, because at best it's a difficult and tedious listen.