Back in 1998, "Transmissions From Scumsburg," my weekly industrial andexperimental radio show on the Boston University student-run station,gave me a late-night forum to blast the blossoming genre often calleddigital hardcore. Alec Empire's DHR, the label who gave the genre itsnamesake, introduced me to such angsty, noisy acts as Bomb 20, Shizuo,EC8OR and, of course, Atari Teenage Riot. The music was pure andviolent, and its riot sounds inspired me in ways that industrial musicno longer did. Then, at the zenith of the label's popularity, it madenumerous bad decisions, giving too much attention to god-awfulside-projects (Nintendo Teenage Robots and She-Satellites) anduninspiring new acts (Fever and Lolita Storm). The label had lost allof the vital energy that kept it relevant, and it wasn't long beforepeople stopped caring about any music it put out. During this fall fromgrace, Atari Teenage Riot's original frontwoman Hanin Elias started upthe Fatal imprint on the label, showcasing music exclusively made bywomen. While the idea may have resembled the somewhat admirable goalsof the Seattle riot-grrrl scene, the implementation was universallydull, signified by the unoriginal white noise of Nic Endo's debut EPand Elias's own drab full-length. Sadly, on Elias's new album No Games No Fun(inaugurating the first Fatal release outside of the DHR community), itappears that those glory days are just as far away as they ever were.Even more lackluster than her last album, Elias' bad songwritingplagues the album as a whole, via murky rock tracks ("Blue") dated hiphop ("You Suck"), lo-fi electronic cuts ("Rockets Against Stones") andbland acoustic numbers ("Catpeople"). Quite frankly, Elias' voice justdoesn't work with ANY of these styles. Not even notable contributorssuch as Merzbow, J. Mascis, Khan, and even Mr. Empire himself can savethis uneven, sub-mediocre release. Still, one thing about this releaseis consistent: its title. I can assure you that this was "no fun" tolisten to. Read More
