Alec Empire – Shivers

Alec Empire

Atari Teenage Riot founding member, and pioneer of digital hardcore, Alec Empire was nice enough to let us listen to a few preview songs from his forthcoming seven-track mini album, Shivers. Shivers is to serve as an aperitif before his next album, which is due out later this year.

Collaborating again with fellow ATR musician Nic Endo, the pair have compiled a mixture of noises that have an altogether retro feel. Achieved partly through the use of various bits and pieces of analogue machinery, many of the tracks have an angry, menacing, and often haunting quality.

Take the album’s opener, ‘Control Drug’, for example. Its threatening synths build to an explosion of the thrusting bassline, while Empire bellows, his vocals somewhere between Iggy Pop and Mark E. Smith. Alas, combining such vocals styles with aggressive breaks seems like a logical amalgamation. Next track ‘Shivers’, has strong echoes of Vangelis’ Bladerunner soundtrack. It’s a sluggish song in which the vocals drift over brimming dystopian soundscapes.

‘Baby Skulls’, is slightly more up-tempo, built over a tinny drum patter that eventually slides into a strange haunting house track, with the addition of a catchy guitar hook adding to this tone. It makes use of fairly evocative lyrics and unsettling chords to create an anxious and hostile environment. This environment persists throughout and into the next song, ‘If You Live or Die’. Throbbing bass is complimented by a distorted, screaming synth. It’s a fairly raw sound, as is the case with all the tracks. The final track of our previews is ’1000 Eyes’. It’s plodding and kooky. Threatening in a way comparable to that of Nine Inch Nails. Dark and again unsettling until it reaches a glowing chorus.

When your back catalogue contains such an eclectic mix that spans several genres, it’s hardly surprising to note that the tracks we were given stretch across several industrial styles, while still managing to exist neatly together. It appears as though Mr Empire is angry again. And it looks set to work very well.

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