Alec Empire - Intelligence & Sacrifice

Label: Digital Hardcore Recordings
Catologue Number:DHRCD29
Format: CD
Date: 2002
Style: Digital Harcore / Electropunk / Industrial Metal
Rating: 8/10
Reviewer: Sidney James

Alec Empire's position as the angry young man of the electronic underground is maintained with the release of his 8th solo album. Where previous his previous albums have covered everything from Tresor style techno (Limited Editions 1990 -1994), abstract jazz (Les Etoiles Des Filles Montes), Aphex Twin style electronica (the excellent Generation Star Wars) head crushing drum and bass (Squeeze the Trigger, The Destroyer) and Elvis meets a wall of noise (Elvis Presley vs. Alec Empire). Intelligence and Sacrifice however covers the same musical terrain as his Atari Teenage Riot (ATR) project.

Which means that Intelligence and Sacrifice is a snarling combination of furious break beats, sampled and looped metal guitar riffs and a buzzing wall of distortion. All topped off with the rabble rousing and polemic charge vocals of Mr Empire. However where ATR’s last album was buried in dissonance and murky production, Intelligent and Sacrifice is crystal clear and almost pop in comparison.

Opening track ‘Path of Destruction’ starts with string samples that sound like they belong on a VNV Nation album before exploding into life with a 180 BPM Gabba beats and a shredded guitar sample. It’s a familiar trick that is used on other tracks such as ‘Intelligent and Sacrifice’, ‘Everything Starts With A Fuck’ and ‘Tear It Out’. It turns creating the most impressive industrial thrash numbers since Nine Inch Nails’ Broken. Empire like Trent Reznor has the ability to mess around with a formula, so even the most simple approach comes across as something new.

However where Intelligent and Sacrifice really shines is when Empire steps away from the blitzkrieg of beats and lowers the tempo. The highlight being the sleazy body electro of ‘Addicted To You’ which sounds like early Gary Numan feed through the hardest of Belgian Nu-Beat, whilst wrestling with ‘Lust for Life’ era Iggy Pop. The Iggy Pop influence doesn’t just end there, ‘Killing Machine’ is Raw Power era Stooges feed through 25 years of decayed and burnt out circuitry.

Like all Alec Empire and Digital Hardcore releases, Intelligent and Sacrifice is politically charged and slogan led, which we lead to some automatically dismissing it’s lyrical content and as outdated and pointless. However in these dark days of cartoon punk (Sum 41, Bowling For Soup and so many countless other) and over wrought therapy rock for the male menopause (Nickleback, Creed and some many countless others) Empire’s vocal is so more potent.

Empire’s message and music is clear, destroy the conventions, question anything and fight those who control our culture and sell us a pre-packaged and sanitised music. Intelligence and Sacrifice proves that there does exist and voice from the underground that is willing to challenge the status quo of an alternative music scene bloated by a lack of musical ambition and conservatism.

To counterpart the sonic violence of Intelligence and Sacrifice, initial copies of the album come with a bonus disc of Empire’s more abstract and experimental work. This second disc covers everything from the fractured glitch techno of the infinite loop of ‘2641998’ which opens and ends the album, to the 80’s sounding electro of Body rock and the icy ambience of ‘Parallel Universe’. The second disc takes a lot of patience to listen to and compared to the main disc makes no sense. (unless you know the expanse of Empire’s musical output). Definitely something to have on in the background than to jump around to like an idiot.