While beginning to enjoy punk and hardcore in high school, Atari Teenage Riot were my Sex Pistols. They were not a punk band in the sense of fashion, brash lyrics or three chord, two minute songs or a hardcore band in the sense of speed or, to a small extent, sound. They were a punk and hardcore band in the sense they were radically different, in both music and volume, than everything else that existed outside of the Digital Hardcore universe and even as part of that, they still stood out. They were completely unapologetic about it, only offering the statement, "riot sounds produce riots" over a distorted squall as their explanation.. For me, Atari Teenage Riot seemed like a amalgamation of the sonic fury of bands like Slayer and Black Flag, the anger and frustration at society found in hip hop groups like N.W.A. and Public Enemy with a layer of dissonant machinery propelling their sound away from dance club floors and onto dirty, bloodstained floors scuffed by Doc Martens with a pile of bodies dragged into the corner. They were German, they were awesome, and within years of reaching American shores with Burn Berlin Burn
(a compilation featuring singles and tracks from their first two albums, Delete Yourself
and The Future of War
) and its follow-up, 60 Second Wipe Out
, they were gone.
