Review: The Ataris – Welcome The Night
While I only had a few songs from this Indiana (US) based rock group, I knew I had an affinity for their unpretentious solid rock style, only hearing them in their post punk-rock era, just like I do with so many other groups, for instance the Goo Goo Dolls. You know those songs, you listen to them and it’s just too easy not to scream along loudly (take for instance, In This Diary, or The Night that the Lights Went Out in NYC). Why not handle the air guitar while your at it ? Not to mention the air drums.
Anyway, that’s kinda gone with this new album. Bombastic is a word that comes to mind. Both the type of music, and how it’s almost like there is a totally new singer involved (searching the internet, it seems it’s still the same singer, strangely). It’s a pretentious over-dramatised rough version of The Cure’s Robert Smith. And that bugs me.
So there are high tempo rock songs, witch screeching heavy electric guitars, but it still kinda depress me. I’m not even going to touch the slower songs. It takes time to listen what’s really behind the noise generated by the guitars, and some subtlety can be discovered given enough (a LOT!) time, and for that, it gets points. But it’s just not enough. It’s too far gone from my comfort zone.5½.