Thursday, October 31, 2013

Band Review: Atlantic Aftermath


I am very afraid that Atlantic Aftermath is no more. There have not been any Twitter or Facebook updates for months, and the main page is a bunch of SQL errors. However, they are still listed as following me on Twitter, I believe it happened more recently than their last tweet based on their position in the queue, and I listened to them, so I am going to review them! Fortunately, they were pretty good.
They describe themselves as heartfelt pop punk. I'm not arguing that, but I feel like it falls more on the punk side. I say this because listening to them made me suddenly want to listen to the Dead Milkmen. Also, there is that spirit of punk that I first started thinking about with the Ramones. Things suck a lot in the songs, but the music feels good. The anger may be there, but the humor wins and goes all literate.
The lyrics are smart, and yet with titles like "Expand Your Brocabulary", they don't seem to take themselves too seriously. My only real objection is to the use of "whore" in "Johnny X-Treme", as I have been uncomfortably aware lately of how the word is used as part of the patriarchal suppression of women, but I will concede that it makes sense in the context.
Musically they are powerful, with strong guitars, aggressive percussion, and frequent singing in unison. "Save The Breakdown, Save The World" and "Bi-Curious George" are good examples of this. I often feel like there are multiple levels going on in the songs. That is true of "Hey Arnold" which may work as an homage to The Warriors, but not as only that.
So, I hope that Atlantic Aftermath is in fact still around, if for no other reason than that surely a band with a song called "Never Say No To Panda" really should do some version of Buddy Holly's "True Love Ways".
Either way, music is available via Amazon and iTunes.

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