Atari Teenage Riot – what a fucking blast back from the rebelliousness of the 90s. Synonymous with the microsized digital hardcore scene, Alec Empire and his gang of outspoken, proto-glitch punks helped disgruntled youth learn how to rage, yours truly included. But with the drop of their first album in ten some-odd years, Is This Hyperreal?, one has to ask if they hold up now in the decade of Change (lol) and Twitter.

Unfortunately, not really. To be fair, ATR’s always exhibited an over-the-top and self-aware sentiment and especially with some of their more well-known tracks, e.g. “Too Dead For Me.” But at the same time they sure do go on and on about the evils of late capitalism and the coming Revolution. The angsty soapbox articulations live on in Is This Hyperreal? and along the way turned overbearingly silly. And, perhaps even worse, much of their new sound strikes as straight-up derivation of other “hard” acts.

The title track “Activate” features chanting, chanting and a side of chanting. Sucks that the very chant consists of lyrics like those from early System of A Down, i.e. shite. It made me want to listen to their version of “Kids Are United!” instead – bad way to start things off. “Blood In My Eyes” is rough and thrash-able except when put against Nic Endo’s uninspired, almost juvenile poetry. Black Flags comes off as a dumbed down, slowmo attempt at the invigorating likes of “Your Uniform (Doesn’t Impress Me!).”

Like I mentioned, a lot of self-righteous rhetoric pervades the album. “Is This Hyperreal?” is the king of complaint, with the denouncement of social media and the Internet at large called “Digital Decay” in a close second. “Collapse of History” deserves its own disdained focus as it’s a bloody sped up and shallow version of Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen.” Perhaps the only interesting tracks on the album are “Shadow Identity” and “The Only Slight Glimpse of Hope” and that’s only because of their departure from the typical distortion and boring guitars. Both unexpectedly treat us to a dreamy, downtempo lull in the middle and therefore produce a poignant interior contrast.

I guess I’ve grown up and out of the hacker rebel mentality – Alec and his cohorts clearly haven’t. The only consideration that saves my grade of this album from plummeting to a 1.5 like a RCA dropped into a kiddie pool is my embarrassing nostalgia.

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