Atari Teenage Riot - Activate

Released to coincide with ATR's reunion tour (a reunion in which Alec Empire is the only original member – although Carl Crack has a good excuse by dint of having fatally overdosed in 2001), Activate presses all the right buttons, marrying ATR's endearingly adolescent sloganeering ("Too much government control!," "Countdown to the meltdown!" etc) with a relentless bass-heavy techno-noise pulse that explodes into a fiendish rave loop on the chorus. With Nic Endo on hand to provide electronic embellishment and new member MC CX Kidtronik dropping some nice aggro couplets the overall effect is far more successful than we could have hoped to expect from an ATR track in 2010. Despite its self-imposed stylistic handicaps this single bodes well for their upcoming tour. [Mark Shukla]