Atlas : Empire

For me this review is kind of the final piece of a trilogy. The Ocean Fracture were one of the first bands I ever saw from my home town in my long gone youth, and though that band may be gone three great ones have been born from the fracturing, if you’ll excuse the pun, of The Ocean Fracture: Hunt/Gather, Salo and Atlas:Empire.

While Hunt/Gather and Salo explore the heavier and angular ends of the early 00's post-hardcore and alternative music scenes that spawned The Ocean Fracture, Atlas: Empire see more post-rock and electronic influences incorporated into their sound. It leads their debut EP to sound incredibly contemporary. It’s clearly a product of its time, whether you see that as a bad thing or not is pretty subjective, and probably liable to the trials of time.


The EP is full of shuffling electronic beats, glassy clean guitars and engaging multiple vocals, all of which sit nicely alongside the subtle dynamic twists that never quite go into the full on aggression of hardcore. ‘What Do We Say to the God of Death?’ is easily the most accessible track on the record because of its more energetic and aggressive approach. There’s enough angst and intensity running throughout the record to convince you that the band really mean it, which is to their credit. It’s all to easy for bands using the quiet-loud dynamic as the man basis for their song writing to disguise any lack of intent with walls of reverb and lashings of delay.

In essence, if you grew up on the angry material of the early oo’s post-hardcore bands and have since developed a taste for quieter or more experimental music as well, then chances are you’re going to find a lot to enjoy in this EP. Atlas:Empire aren’t breaking ground like many of the bands that influenced them, but they’re taking components of all the shit you love and building it together in an awfully shiny and pretty fashion. Which at the end of the day, is kind of what we’re all after in the end anyway - Calum McMillan

While we here at DDHQ aren’t exactly the type to throw genre labels at the bands we review at the best of times, we’d have a hard time doing that with Glasgow’s Atlas:Empire even if we wanted to. Across the four tracks on new EP To The Astronaut… this forward-thinking five-piece bring a multitude of styles and attitudes to the table, and fuse them together to yield genuinely fascinating results.

A swathe of ethereal electronica ushers in opener ‘At The Edge of the Ravine’, providing a misleadingly delicate opener before the track lifts off in a haze of dense, atmospheric soundscapes and vocals that recall Aereogramme at their most introspective. The jagged stop-start indie-rock of ‘What Do We Say To The God of Death?’ is a little more familiar, but is imbued with an inventive, ambitious streak that sees the track’s later half find unexpected weight.

‘…I Was Expecting Ghosts’ is the best on offer here, tumbling and lurching through layers of electronica, effects-laden vocals and over-driven walls of sound like Idiot Pilot once did so proficiently, before ‘Who Watches The Watchmen?’, all clever guitar work and skyscraping vocals, offers a faint nod to the legacy of Kensrue and Teranishi. However, to attempt to tether Atlas:Empire too closely to their influences would be to undermine their own commendable creative streak. To The Astronaut… is not built to be consumed by everyone. Some will retreat from its more avant-garde moments, and others will embrace them. It’s not for us to tell you which category you’ll fall into, but we can’t stress enough how important it is you take the trouble to find out. - http://www.dailydischord.com