Ambassador21 “Human Rage” reviews

Ah, Ambassador21, the often imitated but never equaled industrial hardcore duo from Belarus. Throughout the past few decades, these people have clearly put their mark on the industrial scene with their harsh, relentless sound and their explosive live performances. And it doesn’t look like their reign of domination is about to end soon. But what would you expect from a band that has the punk-attitude flowing through their veins and lives in the same sick and twisted world you and I do?
The album opens with something between an intro and a song. In that aspect, the title track ‘Human Rage’ is an excellent start for this album. You can feel the fury building up while you’re slowly being lured into the world of Ambassador21. ‘Fear Level Red’ follows and brings in all the elements that make this act what it is. With hardcore beats, fierce vocals and a murderous tempo, this song rages on, soon followed by some more. ‘Revelation’ is the single, which might indeed be the most radio-friendly song on this album.
Well, the sound from Ambassador21 is quite far away from being radio friendly, but they do seem to follow recent directions and novelties in the electronic scene. ‘Metal’ is another harsh, industrial dance track that seems to incorporate some modern sounds. ‘Cannibals’ starts out as an electronic version of ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ before turning into a Skinny Puppy meets Morbid Angel’s ‘Illud Divinum Insanus’, something like that. ‘Scream Your Name’, one of my favorites, and ‘Before We Die’ even come up with some dubstep beats. Not a lot, but some.
That being said, yes, there are quite a few Thunderdome-style hardcore beats to be found here, but somehow I think even some of the most hardcore gabbers will fear the dark noise that Ambassador21 bark out. The atmosphere and tempo of the album are simply asphyxiating, They never let your rest, never let you lick your wounds but instead maintain the immense beatdown track after track. ‘Do Or Die Time’ and ‘Empire Must Fall’ might be the most “metal” tracks. I really dig the guitars in these, like Slayer meets Neophyte, maybe.
The album closes with ‘Black Dot’, another smasher which ends in pure noise. And if that isn’t enough electronic brutality for you, you can always get the limited 2CD version with remixes by Nullvektor, Hydrone, Monkey 13 and some reworked versions of ep-tracks.
Who I recommend this to? Well, first of course to all Ambassador21 fans out there. They can blindly trust this act to deliver the goods. Second, I’d like everyone who thinks electronic music can’t be heavy, intense or brutal to check this out, you might be surprised…if you survive…

Background/Info: “Human Rage” is the newest full length album from the Belarus duo Natasha A Twentyone – Alexey Protasov. This album also is a kind of celebration for the band’s 15th anniversary. Ambassador21 has released an impressive number of productions, but always remained faithful to their unique industrial-punk and hardcore sound.
Content: The front cover of the album showing the faces of Natasha and Alexey shouting to each other perfectly symbolizes the sound of the album. I however have to say that the opening cut reveals a different approach, which is more into spooky vocals and bombastic industrial sounds. It’s a kind of intro preceding a much harder and merciless work where the duo gets back to the sources of their work.
“Human Rage” is the perfect symbiosis between industrial noises, hardcore rhythms and anarchistic sound treatments plus crazy samples. Sometimes technoid, but then driven by guitar riffs or revisiting the famous song “Eye Of The Tiger” Ambassador21 again takes you by surprise.
+ + + : Like them or not, but one thing remains for sure and that’s why I also deeply respect this band: there’s only one band like Ambassador21. Their sound brings contradictory elements and influences together. Nothing is weird enough, but in the end it simply works and sounds hard. I have to say the opening song –which also is the title song, really took me by surprise like revealing a new side of the band. I also enjoyed the more familiar cuts moving into power, terror and rage.
– – – : I regret they didn’t compose more songs in the vein of “Human Rage”, but on the other side it also stands for an atypical track.
Conclusion: Punk remains the muse of Ambassador21, which again inspired them to compose a hard, merciless and enraged work.
Best songs: “Human Rage”, “Scream Your Name”, “Empire Must Fall”.

Since December 2001 Ambassador21 (or A21 to some) have been bashing ears relentlessly and have arguably been helping to keep the spirit of digital hardcore alive. 15 years later and following on from an already bulging discography we are presented with their latest album entitled HUMAN RAGE on Invasion.
A21 consist of Alexey Protasov and Natasha A Twentyone who have conspired together to cram ten slices of anger and rhetoric presented in both English and Russian into HUMAN RAGE. Terror, war, revolution and freedom are the fuel for their muscular sonic assaults.
The title track HUMAN RAGE opens proceedings in a menacing and brooding fashion before a rather monolithic rhythm lays down a solid foundation for the tracks to follow. FEAR LEVEL RED does not hold back in any way as gabber and digital hardcore beats are wielded frenziedly. REVELATION is tribal and kinda groovy in a heavy sort of way. The track METAL reflects it’s title somewhat with an industrial metal nod to Die Krupps before A21 put on their size 11s and stomp their boot prints all over the track. Survivor have their Eye Of The Tiger ‘borrowed’ for CANNIBALS, with the unmistakable riff forming the filling and a gabber and hardcore sandwich. SCREAM YOUR NAME relaxes into EBM territory somewhat though there are stabs and blasts throughout to keep things spicier. DO OR DIE TIME and EMPIRE MUST FALL show off a metallic edge with cut up riffs driving their soundf home with effective power. BEFORE WE DIE returns to the moody and simmering style of the title track while their closing statement BLACK DOT confirms that A21 have little attention of lowering their level of aggression any time soon.
HUMAN RAGE is a massive affair, in that it has great mass. A21 wield this mass with equally great force and conviction resulting in a release of great weight and substance. It also helps that production is tight and punchy ensuring that attention is kept throughout. It will be a harsh listen for purveyors of more lightweight electronica though there are accessible moments and hooks are secreted plentifully throughout.
This is an impressive release and should find favour with those who suspect that the digital hardcore movement fizzled out somewhat. A21 have admirable anger and spirit and have hit a new high with this release on their 15 year anniversary. Consume, be fired up and take action….

If you see the impressive biography of Ambassador21, you can only include that they are one of the most hardworking acts from the European industrial scene. Human Rage is the new studio album. Previously I used to compare this dynamic duo from Belarus with the hardcore punk sound of Atari Teenage Riot, or other work by Alec Empire, but with this album Alexey and Natasha lift themselves up to a much higher level.
It is obvious Alexey and Natasha worked hard in recent years to make their sound perfect. Recently they have their own studio, a high power workstation with a brand new set of monitors. So that includes more power, and so the new Ambassador21 tunes contain less samples, but with more powerful (virtual) synthesizers and instruments now which give it all a positive touch.
Musically Human Rage is a very hard and aggressive album with hardcore beats that would have fit fine on an old school 90’s terror / gabber party somewhere in Rotterdam. Most guitar work is sampled, and sometimes they use other music styles, so occasionally you can hear some dubstep wobbles and such drum patterns in the mix, but also classical and lounge are styles which are used in this superb soundtrack of the apocalypse.
Lyrically the album is influenced by the current state of the world. As many of us know, there are many political issues, many deaths in conflict zones, explosions, religious wars, terrorist attacks and more explosions. The attentive listener can hear all these issues in well-placed sound bites and samples which are part of the music.
Also personal experiences are included on this album. The many conversations with the fans while touring, but also the immense support Alexey got when fighting the battle against cancer which he won. Alexey and Natasha found out how many people think like them about many current world problems. People are not really happy with the way the world goes, they want change. They want to be away from the many wars, away from all the cooperatives, misery and the current system. All these stories and experiences are included in the Ambassador21 lyrics. Human Rage is an album for the people, for the fans, all seen through the eyes of Ambassador21. A song which stands out, in my opinion, is Fear Level Red, a very hard industrial track.
Cannibals uses the sample of Survivor’s Eye Of The Tiger. Yes, indeed that tune from the Rocky movies. In the aggressive Empire Must Fall I kind of recognize Slayer. Before We Die is a weird one, a lounge intro, some dubstep influences and a deep techno house synth riff, a track you need to listen a few times to before you understand it, but I love that kind of mix. With its threatening undertone and slower pace the title track Human Rage is my favorite song. Alexey and Natasha almost sound like Die Antwoord on crack and on some very, very heavy steroids.
Human Rage is a production which makes you silent. Do yourself a favor and listen to this album on a sound system with a pair of good speakers.
For the real fans a limited edition double disc of 300 copies is out, including remixes of Lenny Dee and Hallucinator. Worth buying!

The duo of Alexey Protasov and Natasha A Twentyone – collectively known as Ambassador21 – has never known the meaning of the word compromise. Their music has presented for 15 years a relentless brand of politically charged industrialized noise that has heralded them as the Belarusian equivalent of Atari Teenage Riot. With Human Rage, the pair continues on the path of audio onslaught, offering up a dynamic brand of digital hardcore that threatens to destroy the earplugs of the uninitiated.
As aggressive as ever, Human Rage hits the listener hard, with a track like “Empire Must Fall” being one of the best examples of the band’s power; sampled guitars and stabs of synth overlaying spastic beats and grating noises and in-your-face lyrics make for a decidedly confrontational sound. The same can be said of tracks like “Do Or Die Time,” and especially “Cannibals,” which cleverly samples Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” to make for an almost anthemic rallying march against a self destructive society on the brink. Even amid the harsh barrage of noisy textures, tracks like “Fear Level Red” and “Revelation” appear with symphonic textures to ground them in some sense of actual songwriting, indicating the band’s attention to detail – noisy though it may be, every second is carefully arranged and produced on this album. Other tracks opt for a slower burn, gradually building from ominous quiet to desperate mania, like the haunting title track with its distant, almost ghostly vocal distortions amid a pulsating march of light beats and bass, “Metal” with its noisy vocal refrains and mechanical groove reminiscent of Chu Ishikawa’s score to Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and “Before We Die,” which begins with an almost mournful procession of hollow ambience before punching into a high gear dance track. Traces of EDM abound throughout the album as warbles of bass and synth augment the cacophony of shattering industrial clanks and howls, proving that Ambassador21 is not above updating its methods to achieve its goals.
To say that Human Rage, or Ambassador21’s music in general, is not for all tastes would be quite the understatement, for while digital hardcore has its charms and its strengths, it is a brand of music not suited to mass consumption… and really, that’s part of the point. It’s a style that is meant to tackle uncomfortable topics and make the listener address that discomfort, all the while allowing for the artists to simultaneously exorcise and fuel their rage. For this alone, Human Rage stands as a fine outing from Ambassador21; it may not break the mold the band has set for itself, but then again, with the world constantly in a state of strife and succumbing to the perils of corporatism, terrorism, and political agendas that only serve to subjugate the populace, why should it? Like the Strange Days sample says, “Maybe it’s time for a war.”

After 6 years of blood, sweat and tears, AMBASSADOR21 strikes back with new studio album Human Rage: industrial, hardcore, rhythmic noise and EBM, blended together in a unique mix and celebrating the band’s 15th Anniversary.
Title track Human Rage is a rather slow electro/industrial song with heavely distorted vocals, a gloomy melody and very nice dark beats. Fear Level Red says it all: this is war, very aggressive, intense, and sometimes it sounds like real hardcore house. The aggressive vocals make the picture very complete. At the end of the song, we hear a short but heavy metal riff. This song has a bit of everything and it breathes anarchy. The storm continues with Revelation: martial beats come walking in. The lyrics are in English and Rusisan. Very provocative track. “Reactivate the bass”, I hear someone whisper in Metal: a wobble bass opens the song, which sounds like a wall of noise. Cannibals contains a sample of Eye of The Tigre, accompagnied by a deafening beat. Extremely hard in every way.
We had to wait for a while, but Scream Your Name is definitely a dancefloor killer: a nice melody, a noisy background and danceable beats. The synths are very present in this beautiful song: nearly five minutes of breathless dancing time.
In Do Or Die Time we are tortured by a very tight guitar riff and devastating drumbeats. Metal meats aggrotech. And it sounds awesome. Empire Must Fall brings more of the same: a hardcore drumbeat and powermetal guitars. Before We Die gives us a little bit of time to breathe. A slower song full of noise. Final song Black Dot is a cocktail of aggressive beats, sounding as an automatic gun, dark vocals, noisy parts. Morituri te salutant….
AMBASSADOR21 was on hold for 6 years, but now the band strikes back, and how. This album is hard, aggressive, noisy and devastating, but at the same time very diverse. When you play it, play it loud and you will get the full experience of Human Rage. What else can I say: welcome back guys!

Schon seit längerer Zeit kündigte sich das neue Album von AMBASSADOR21 an und nun ist es soweit. “Human Rage” ist da und wird dir die Gehör -und Hirngänge mal so richtig frei pusten. 15 Jahre digitaler Krach auf intensivsten Niveau haben sie schon hinter sich aber in “Human Rage” stecken 6 Jahre Arbeit, Blut und Schweiß.
Der Titeltrack als Opener beginnt im Rhythmus eines Herzschlages düster und sehr kolossal und wiegt den Hörer fast in Sicherheit bis dann mit “Fear Level Red” ein brachialer explosionsartiger Orgasmus an digitalen Beats, wütendem Sequenzern und aggressiven Shouts über einen hereinbricht. Ein echter Killer Song der bleibenden Eindruck hinterlässt. Aber man ist durchaus auch facettenreich unterwegs und verbleibt nicht im nervenaufreibenden Uptempo. “Revelation” ist folgend wieder etwas langsamer, aber nicht weniger aggressiv. Zu wechselnd russischen und englischen Texten wird zwischen Break Beats und reißenden Gitarrenriffs ein spannendes Wechselbad der musikalischen Emotionen abgespult.
Generell geht`s in dem Album um Terror, Angst, Krieg, Geld, Freiheit, Action, Mut, Liebe, Freundschaft, also all die Themen die uns Menschen heutzutage beschäftigen, in positiver und negativer Hinsicht.
Sehr interessant ist wie man in “Cannibals” den Riff von “Eye Of The Tiger” in den ersten Teil des Songs integriert hat, sicherlich wird man diesem Stück viel Aufmerksamkeit schenken. Als weiteren Anspiel Tipp empfehle ich noch “Empire Must Fall” mit seinen brachialen Gitarrenriffs und wilden Beats die keinen Stein auf dem anderen stehen lassen. Tolle aggressive Stimmung. Eher mystisch und technisch trickreich erscheint das Stück “Before We Die”. Dieses Album bietet unglaublich aggressiven und dichten Stoff der vor allem die kommenden Live Konzerte zu einem extrem intensiven Erlebnis werden lassen wird. Die Stimmung der Musik überträgt sich schnell auf den Hörer, soviel ist sicher. Also laut aufdrehen und ausrasten bitte sehr!!!