Well, this CD baffled me a bit.
The band bio is pretty specific about the 4 members’ dedication. I just have no idea who played what, as there are no credits on it. I mean their names are there, but not who played what.

So instead, I will speak about the songs.
My overall impression is that the band is very talented, very tight, and has a great work ethic. There are a lot of difficult timing passages in the songs. Reminds me of Porcupine Tree without the keyboards at times, and also of late Adrian Belew-era King Crimson.

That said, there was one thing that bothered me a lot.
None of the songs had any kind of hook. I don’t mean in the POP sense, I mean I could not latch onto anything in the music that was not difficult to listen to. I listened to it 3 times to make sure my 1st impression was not too biased., but afterwards still came away, impressed, sure, but also disappointed.

Ok, that sounds harsh. What I mean is if you listen to say, Gentle Giant, there is a lot of dissonance, a lot of weird timings, even strange acapella stuff. But all the craziness still has a groove, and some killer vocals and there is a hook. I could not latch onto that elusive ‘thing’ to entice me with THIS CD.

But this is about Atlas Shrug’s debut. Honestly, they are GOOD. Atlas Shrug hails from Canada, they are clearly accomplished musicians, their music IS well recorded and produced; no digital enhancements, auto-tuning, quantizing, etc was used. I respect that a lot. Simply recorded old-school, mixed and mastered in Alberta at Mind For Music Studios. There use of very intense, dark soundscapes is effective: I wanted so much to be moved by them. Sadly for me, the brilliance of the musicianship was lost on me, again because while technically creative and intense, the melodies were very hard to follow.

Lyrically, however, there was a lot of excellent imagery, and a lot of the darkness came from there as well, this is not a bad thing. Music does not have to be sweet and flowery to be good.

Perhaps part of the issue was also part of the plan:
The band apparently pride themselves on the use of complex time signatures, LAYERED by using simple mathematic ideas, and literary concepts. Their bio points to the song THE REMINDER for example, is based on the ‘SOS” Morse code sequence and literary concepts involving 2012 prophecies, superimposed over a specific date.

These ideas are very creative. However, I suspect that sometimes the cleverness can supercede the music to the point that all you have is that, and the message is lost. My only other issue is that there was a sameness to the keys used in the music. I don’t know if this was done on purpose, or due to limitations of the vocalist.

Apparently, they are very well respected in their fan base, so I doubt I will make any friends among them here, or convert anyone AWAY from them. That is never my intention anyway. I want to emphasize that I respect what they have attempted here; they have pushed the boundaries of rock music, which needs pushing, for sure.

Conclusion
It was an interesting listen, I would be interested in hearing their next release to see if this is just one aspect of their style. Make no mistake, they have their own sound. That alone is a big accomplishment. Kudos to them for a genuine effort to be themselves.

GRADE: A+ for effort and sheer audacity
C+ for the rest.
See more about them at www.atlasshrug.ca



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