ALEC EMPIRE - Futurist

"I'm talking about the death of rock'n'roll". These are the first words of "Futurist", the album that marks Alec Empire's return, three years after "Intelligence & Sacrifice" (widely considered by critics to be one of his best works). Taken on their own, these words could trigger all sorts of expectations, in many cases quite different from the record's actual content. A line from the booklet sheds unequivocal light on their meaning: "Is rock'n'roll dead? No, the beast has just grown tired of your games". In essence, the underlying idea of "Futurist" is to rediscover rock'n'roll, offering an industrial-age update of all its wildest manifestations (punk, hard rock, alt-rock, metal, hardcore).

Empire can boast a very high "culture of the riff", which allows him to juggle the material with ease. Unfortunately, though, he never manages to go beyond that. Broadly speaking, the record's limit - its biggest limit - is that interest in the songs fades after a minute, a minute and a half. It's a record in which the flaws and the missed opportunities are what stand out most. The panzer-anthem of "Point Of No Return" lacks the agility needed to really land the blow, while the nimble "Vertigo" lacks power. The hard-rock assault of "Overdose" and the indie groove of "Uproar" aren't exploited properly and end up feeling unfinished.

Only two or three tracks really hit the mark. First and foremost, the punk spasm of "Kiss of Death" (just released as a single, sounding like a violent version of the Ramones), the opening track and arguably the best of the bunch. Then come "Hunt You Down", an epic, brash slab of rock, and "XXV3", which begins as a murderous whisper before exploding. Unfortunately, there are just as many fillers (starting with "Night of Violence", a nocturnal, poor-relation take on "Kiss Of Death").

What emerges is a mediocre record, or little more, one that certainly fails to revive rock's former glories, and which leaves room for two considerations. The first is that today, finding a rock sound that's both contemporary and rooted in tradition, and genuinely effective, is a tall order. The second is that Empire (considering that "Futurist" doesn't seem entirely lacking in inspiration) may have tried to push too far beyond his own abilities, straying too far from his own territory.

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30/04/2026