Atari Teenage Riot
Burn, Berlin, Burn!

THE REVIEW

I won't be brief.
When I ordered this album from my (then) trusted store, I had just turned 17. It was 1997, at the height of the chemical beats wave: artists like Prodigy, Goldie, Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack, Portishead, and Tricky were producing one amazing album after another, and looking back, they were truly "experimental" for the channels they were intended for (radio, television, etc.).
Personally, I was very intrigued by the fusion of rave culture, punk rock sounds, and hip hop language from some of the bands that emerged during that period: however, I knew there was something even more extreme and unconventional out there.

I am referring, of course, to Atari Teenage Riot, a band from Germany led by the troubled and fierce leader (and in this case, the term is very fitting) Alec Empire, often absurdly compared to Trent Reznor. But fortunately, the music and the content of this group are not even comparable to the bland, faux-evil technodark of Nine Inch Nails: Atari Teenage Riot was anger, real anger, 100% outrage provoked by a post-1989 (the fall of the Berlin Wall) era that brought with it a massive nationalist exploitation by the media, primarily focusing on the consequent marginalization of minorities and the glorification of capitalism.

Berlin, as everyone knows, has always been a "hot" city. The general unrest in the early '90s was at an all-time high, and the neo-Nazi movement was clearly regaining momentum: others, as Empire himself noted in an interview, were trying to escape this frustration by seeking solace in the early synthetic drugs and raves.
It was from this situation that Empire came to a drastic conclusion: "the system must be destroyed," and he applied it to music, expressing all the repressed violence and strong political message in the group's early singles (also including MC Carl Crack and frontgirl Hanin Elias), many of which are contained in this "Burn, Berlin, Burn!", an effective summary of their output until 1997.

I believe this is the ideal album for anyone wanting to approach Atari Teenage Riot or for those who prefer to leave them be: you either love them or hate them; there's no middle ground. And there is no middle ground with their sound either, which is the most fierce and uncompromising ever created in music: Empire & co.'s lyrics, mainly composed of slogans advocating for nihilism, revolution, total anarchy, and hatred towards any form of power, are shouted over a backdrop that is a genuine sonic assault without pauses.
Death metal riffs sampled on hardcore bases, impending catastrophic atmospheres, as if we were all standing before Judgment Day with Empire and his followers leading a revolt against the world's governments.
There is no peace, no serenity: only blind rage and a desire to overthrow the system.

The initial "Start The Riot" is an entire manifesto of the group’s intentions: "are you readieeeeeeeee?", the wild fury begins among distortions, dissonances of all kinds, and a grim and imperious BPM. "FUCK ALL!!" introduces with a piercing AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH from Helias, who proves to be as angry as her companion Alec. Words are insufficient to describe the unprecedented violence of these pieces, true anthems of suburban revolution, which however hide a clear thought pattern of the German band: music and words must not be separated from each other, as "Riot sounds produce riots", and in the end, this is the key element for interpreting a project like this.

The approach, after all, is the same as "Metal Machine Music": the noise that covers the hypocrisy, the standardization of art, the submission of man's primary instincts for the benefit of a "progress" that touches the few and penalizes the many. This is the spirit that animates extreme and brutal episodes like "P.R.E.S.S." and, above all, "Destroy 2000 Years Of Culture" where the main target is the oppressive and discriminatory politics carried out by the Catholic Church.
"Delete Yourself" is almost an homage to '77 punk (with an effective sample of "God Save The Queen") and the caustic "Deutschland Has Gotta Die!" supported by the fiery vocal performance of the three riots, is probably the most anti-patriotic song of all time. "Into The Death" is built on an old-school death riff repeated continuously, wild hardcore beats, drum'n'bass insertions, also revealing the remarkable versatility of the band demonstrated in other outbursts like "Speed" which, however, leave a minimum space for melody.

Tracks like "Revolution Action" or "Digital Hardcore" were yet to come, but I believe these are the most genuine ATR, those of an Empire who truly believed he could kick the world's ass, mindful of the horrible end of some of his family members slaughtered in the Nazi death camps because they were suspected of socialist sympathies.
This was a group that could never have emerged from the USA, where Slipknot dress up as killer clowns just because in the village where they were born, they were bored among cows and chickens: this was a group that came from real hardship and expressed real anger, not artificial. That same year (1997), the Japanese noise artist Nic Endo joined ATR.

Hanin Elias has released several solo works and has become a mother.
In September 2001, Carl Crack, who had long suffered from depression and mental disorders, committed suicide.
Alec Empire, after a period of personal crisis, embarked on a solo career and in 2002 released the double album "Intelligence & Sacrifice".
It's needless to say that Atari Teenage Riot no longer exists.