Alec Empire - The Golden Foretaste Of Heaven

by Dave Evans

The retro sound of the future

"Empire sings like the poster boy from the 1980’s anti-heroin adverts and smack chic just doesn’t cut it any more"

Alec Empire, from his Atari Teenage Riot days onwards, has made much of being the sound of the future. Punk, new-wave and even techno are all just dead flesh to him now. Or so his admirers would say. In reality, it is from the raw material of these very genres he builds his futuristic soundscapes. Despite the no doubt vociferous protestations of many this is as equally retro-futurist as anything Stereolab would be likely to put out. Bored mechanical vocals, icy synths and metronomic drumming dominate – and that’s just opener ‘New Man’ – which sets the scene for much of the same.

The bold (and frankly untrue) claims made for this music actually detract from what could be a halfway decent set of electro-punk bangers interspersed with the odd moment of not-so-elegant wastage. ‘If You Live Or Die’ builds from a Lou Reed-esque spoken intro into a maelstrom of rattling fucked up electronics and motoring fx into a less danceable LCD Soundsystem, ‘Down Satan Down’ is even better, strangely bubbly avant-pop you could shake your Prince Albert around to.

It doesn’t all fare so well though. Main problem being sheer repetition of ideas. A couple of tracks are even worse. ‘On Fire’ is vaguely ridiculous. It’s probably supposed to be all scary and stuff but despite the claim "we made love for hours and hours", Empire sounds like a weedy little virgin. ‘1000 Eyes’, the supposed centrepiece of the album, simply drags. Meaningless and trite lyrics over squalls of feedback and some lousy guitar work and seven minutes of it to boot. Occasionally saying the word ‘motherfuckers’ as shorthand for rebellion (‘Robot Love’) is just lazy. Must try harder.

It’s hard to know exactly why this band have been so feted. Mark E.Smiths Von Sudenfed carried this type of thing off with a great deal more panache, wit and energy only last year. Empire sings like the poster boy from the 1980’s anti-heroin adverts and smack chic just doesn’t cut it any more. If he spent a bit less time trying to sound cool and fucked, and more on actually creating something new, we’d all be better off. Mr.Empire, take a look at some pictures of The Magic Band or your countrymen Kraftwerk; that’s what true innovators look like.

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