Alec Empire

Over the last 12 months, many fans of the digital hardcore scene have been bitching away over the internet about the state of the label, about Atari Teenage Riot, and mainly, about how Alec Empire has turned into Nine inch Nails or become a junkie, amongst many other odd rumours.
Just because there has been a break in communication for a while, people feel the need to gossip and to fill in the void in their uninformed lives. Well, I can’t tell you much about the label, you’ll have to start more rumours there, but I can tell you that Alec Empire doesn’t seem to be coming across as a Junkie, or a musical Dictator, and his ‘new’ sound certainly doesn’t come across as a Nine inch Nails** rip off. In fact, take the hardest elements of The Future of War, add the hardest noisiest elements of 60 second wipeout, blend them together and then put a new dimension onto the whole sound, and you will have an idea how Alec Empire is sounding in 2001. It’s the year he comes out fighting. Literally. Playing to about 50 people, Alec, backed by a guitarist, drummer and Atari Teenage Riot's Nic Endo, casually walk onto the stage, whilst we wonder whether the guitars and real drums are going to prove the internet rumours wrong, and within seconds, our eardrums are knocked into oblivion, as it dawns on us that Alec Empire 2001 style is going to be far from safe. One minute in, Alec has decided to jump of the stage and bounds into the crowd fists and feet flying, startling a somewhat bemused audience, sending drinks flying and even sending some of the audience fleeing to the safety of the bar.