A note for note cover of any Atari Teenage Riot song is a silly idea but that is what D-Trash Records have offered up with The Virus has been Spread. Nearly every track here is a straight-up cover lacking in any imagination, vision, or sense of danger. As such, The Virus has been Spread is a limp and impotent attempt at a tribute. It is most likely a way for this label to get its acts some spotlight; it has bitten them in the tail because after listening to this CD I do not want to hear any of these artists again.
What made Atari Teenage Riot special was not the music nor the lyrics but the attitude. The music got fairly mundane quite quickly and the lyrics were always a bit suspect. However, the conviction in the delivery of the songs was always enough to make Atari Teenage Riot live up to their name. Unfortunately, every single artist on this compilation has missed this integral part of the equation. The only times when I felt any element of chaos or danger were when the artist making the cover has sampled from the original version of the song. This again overlooks an important part of what made Atari Teenage Riot more than another techno-cum-metal band: all their samples were home made and not lazily borrowed from someone else's music. It is especially depressing when the Atari Teenage Riot samples are followed by pure garbage like DHC Meinhof's "Revolution Action."
While I am impressed that many of the bands here have managed to replicate some of the frenzied feedback featured on the original tracks with high fidelity, their pedestrian plod through the songs is less than inspiring. Rabbit Junk's "Start the Riot" sounds more suitable for a bingo hall and regrettably it opens the album; hardly an encouraging start. By far the most heinous of bad covers on this compilation is Howard Roark's take on "No Remorse (I Wanna Die)" as it is not only an insult to Atari Teenage Riot but to the one good song that Slayer have done since 1990 (the original being a collaboration between the two). The one decent attempt comes from Hansel with their version of "Ghostchase," instead of trying to out-Digital Hardcore the kings and queens of Digital Hardcore they remove nearly all the metal aspects of the music and replace them with orchestral instrumentation and silences. It is not a particularly great cover but compared to the rest of The Virus has been Spread it is leagues ahead.
If I sound harsh, it is only because Atari Teenage Riot are close to my heart and it pains me to hear so many mediocre versions of their songs used in a crass attempt of self-promotion. I have only managed to sit through all of this a couple of times, I keep getting the urge to put on 60 Second Wipe Out at obscene volumes instead. The Virus has been Spread intrigued me as D-Trash have had a long history with Digital Hardcore Recordings so I hoped it might be a competent attempt at paying tribute to an often overlooked but great band but I was sadly deceived.
samples:
- Rabbit Junk - Start the Riot
- Hansel - Ghostchase
- DHC Meinhof - Revolution Action
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