Atari Teenage Riot: 60 Second Wipe Out

Atari Teenage Riot has been justly hailed for adding a potent political voice and revolutionary punk-rock spirit to a genre of heavy electronic music that needed both. With many dance-floor anthems saying literally nothing, or endlessly repeating the same meaningless slogans—"change my pitch up / smack my bitch up," "right about now / funk soul brother," and so on—it's refreshing and exciting to hear Atari Teenage Riot, Asian Dub Foundation, and a few others use the flash and grind of electronics as a fierce musical platform around which to promote a fierce ideological platform. But it's still awfully easy to get cynical about ATR's message, especially when it's delivered almost exclusively in slogans: There's a very thin line between the revolutionary cries of "Start the riot!" or "Revolution action!" and the corporate commercial slogans of, say, "Feed the rush!" or "Slam the stack!" (That's saying nothing of Atari Teenage Riot's tendency to fall back on cliches, from the "Throw your fist up!" of "Western Decay" to the "Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" chorus of "Atari Teenage Riot II.") Still, it's virtually impossible to deny the intense, devastating sonic power of Atari Teenage Riot's many recordings, including the densely assaultive new 60 Second Wipe Out. Mixing elements of speed-metal, industrial, punk, and hip hop—and carefully packaging everything in cool black leather and pretty, sneering faces—the resulting package is viscerally powerful and over-the-top in nearly every conceivable way. Atari Teenage Riot and 60 Second Wipe Out may not say as much as they try to, but they sure say it well.