A Virus Has Spread: A Tribute to Atari Teenage Riot

Artist:  Various Artists

Title- Atari Teenage Riot - A tribute "The Virus Has
Been Spread"

Label- D-Trash Recoirds

Reviewer- Robert Eaton 

The trouble with making a tribute album is that it's
often like making another Star Wars movie. You have to
have some good people on board, because, usually, if
you are doing a tribute album, you are treading on
sacred ground. Certainly that is the case with "The
Virus Been Has Spread," a tribute to Atari Teenage
Riot. It's hard to match Atari Teenage Riot for sheer
intensity, and in order for this tribute to stand up,
it's going to require some pretty enterprising minds.
Atari Teenage Riot emerged in the newly reunited
Germany in 1992, playing what the band referred to as
"digital hardcore" a nasty revolt against the
commercial German techno scene. Also, intensly
political, ATR vowed "not to reform the system, but to
destroy the system." So, ATR went on to release some
of the noisiest, most uncompromising music we have
ever had the pleasure of our collective ears bleeding
to. Doing an ATR tribute, there's going to be some
noisy, nasty examples, none to easy to follow.
Fortunately, "The Virus Has Been Spread" delivers:
there's something here both for the uninitiated, who
may be approaching Atari Teenage Riot's music for the
first time, and for the hard-core fan of ATR. For this
reviwer, the albums looses a little bit of it's steam
towards the middle, but it bookended by Rabbit Junk's
blistering take on ATR classic "Start The Riot" and
(contemporary luminaries of noise themselves)
Schitzoid's version of "The Future of War." The best
songs on this disk manage to stay true to Atari
Teenage Riot's music, while adding a little modern
flourish, be it turn-tables, samples, or whatever. One
of the strengths of this disk is that it seems to have
conjoured up the lesser known and unknown acts from
the genre, who in turn demonstrate they are the right
bands to carry the flag for ATR. This is a good jolt
to anybody that's a little disturbed about how
over-produced and safe a lot of EBM and Industrial has
gotten.