| CD REVIEW Atlas Loosing Grip |
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Band : Atlas Loosing Grip In spite of being a rather young band (formed in early 2005) the also young members of this Lund based Swedish Melodic Punk Rock act are not without a certain degree of experience. After several line-up changes the band stabilized to comprise bassist/ lead singer Stefan Bratt (also a member of Enemy Alliance, which includes former members of Satanic Surfers and Venerea), guitarist/ backing singer Gustav Brunn (whom filled in on guitar during Enemy Alliance's New Wind, Second Wave November tour of 2007), guitarist & occasional second backing singer Max Huddén, and drummer Julian Guedj (also drumming in Sista Sekunden, Sweden's biggest Hardcore act comprising former members of Satanic Surfers). Believing the Melodic PunkRock scene lost grip with their roots, the band was formed with the intent of playing fast-paced Melodic PunkRock with personal and, most importantly, political lyrics. Spending most of their first two years of existence in the rehearsal room, from which they only surfaced to play gigs on a frequent basis (next to fulfilling their other obligations, of course), the band recorded two demos prior to entering Studio Bengt in October of 2007 to record their first full-length with recording engineer/ producer Mattias Persson. The result is a 13-track album which was first released by Japan's Bell's On imprint (on July 9th) and was then picked up by No Reason (for Italy), DV's Records (France), and the band got themselves additional distribution deals in Spain (with Eating Shit Records and Portugal) before the physical release on Shield Recordings came about (when the album was still only available in Japan the boys talked to the dudes from Antilectual after a gig, who suggested they contact Shield, which they did. As the label liked what the band was doin' and the band liked the label, everything was worked out to perfection). For your introduction to the album, the band has posted no less than 6 songs off the album at myspace.com/atlaslosinggrip, and a 7th song comes in the form of an in-studio video recording. You'll find a band deeply emotional about what they have to say without ever becoming Emo...even if the vocals dó go that way! Funnily enough, none of the 3 tracks ("Riding The Tube", "Never Grow Apart", or album closer "The Scorn Of Others")featuring Rodrigo Alfaro (former Satanic Surfer and current Enemy Alliance drummer) as additional singer was posted. Nor were the cover of Adhesive's (short) "Punk Is A Bunch Of Kids With Funny Haircuts" with its spoken outro, or "All In Vain" with its genuine(?) sample of an atom bomb scare scenario. The band plans to do an extensive European tour in promotion for the album come January-February (originally they'd planned to do that in September/ October but apparently something went wrong), but they're still looking for loads of booking (if you're interested, check out the band's MySpace page to see what's possible). 80/100 Tony. |