Attack Formation

Only during the warped electronic beat of closer "Study Break Dancing" does its computer-generated voice finally explain Attack Formation. To summarize, the 189-member, revolving-door Austin ensemble constitutes a broken social scene, an avant-garde collective based on the pendulous relationship between improvisation and experimentation. As such, the group's prolific output comes across like a garage sale, a random assemblage of found and abandoned sound. With We Are Alive in Tune, nearly everything is worth keeping. Reaganometry's "Black Magic" couples surging rhythms with atmospheric vocals that teeter on the brink of consciousness, while Butcher Bear's "Let's Play Immature" suffers an all-out technological breakdown. The spastic, horn-accented post-punk of "Similar Sideways Glance" and "Two Daughters (aka Part II)" captures the same catharsis of "Hours." As "The Truth Moves Out" will attest, there's comfort in the confusion.
(3.5/5) - Austin Chronicle

Texas Top 10

Audra Schroeder
Somebody as Anybody LP

Darcie Stevens
Somebody as Anybody LP - Austin Chronicle

From the opening notes of "Station ID," you can tell Austin's Attack Formation was running long before the gate sprung open. A pulp-noirish sample plays as "formation" is repeated over and over; this dive-bombs into the choppy "Pearl Snaps," which punctures the eardrum with singer Ben Webster's ferocious screams. From there, the momentum stays fast and tight, like an ashtray thrown across a bar during a fight. "Russian (Glacier Song)" recalls the thump and jerk of Swell Maps, slowly building to a cacophonous jumble of jackhammer bass and shrieking guitars. "Go to Ten" thrashes and "I'm Buried Alive" bleats and beeps like a song from Blade Runner. "High Noon" is electro-doom, and "Running Fire Thru Yr. Mind" is a dreamy roundabout declaring, "We're standing up, and we're not leaving." The revolving door, instrument-switching approach to AF's live show is precisely what makes Somebody as Anybody such a beautiful, trench-digging manifesto; they call themselves an "organ(eye)zation," an anti-establishment cadre of sorts, an umbrella for dystopic sound and vision. A band but not a band. There is the crux: Attack Formation is everywhere and nowhere, rocking your face off while subliminally giving your mind a colonic.
(3.5/5) - Austin Chronicle

Attack Formation's "We Are Alive in Tune" is quite a fun and enjoyable album. Their sound is all over the place, using break beats, regular rock formulas, electronic, samples, etc... That reminds me a bit of the band Rose for Bohdan. Not the music per se, but the feel of the tracks..bouncing away in all kinds of directions. Maybe (actually more than likely) that has to do with the fact that Attack Formation doesn't have a fixed line-up. The band consists of a core of musicians with numerous folks contributing. For me, that's all fine. Because it's the reason why this album didn't bore me one second. All these 13 tracks went by easily, no tendencies to skip any. Au contraire, a couple of them I played more than just a few times: "Football" & especially "Girl, what's wrong?". Those are definitely my faves among a lot of interesting songs. Make sure you check them out yourself. - Mashnote

Avant garde noise-pop that doesn’t mind being so far removed from the center that it’s looked at with scorn and admiration all at once. An ever-evolving group of characters, Attack Formation seems to find that it’s music is mathematically challenging as well as melodic and catchy. An odd combo for sure, but “We Are Alive in Tune” is a dynamic energetic album filled with diverse influences and sounds. - Smother

Like guerilla warfare, underground music can often be much more effective than its slick, major-money counterpart. Although records such as Somebody As Anybody lack the distribution and financial backing of, say, the new Foo Fighters album, the passion and integrity behind the songs are far and away more impacting than Grohl's polished drivel. This is just one example, and although these two acts share little common ground artistically, a point can be made that true, life-affirming art usually falls between the cracks of big commerce and corporate greed. Austin's Attack Formation are a stellar example of what one will discover on the gritty underbelly of a thriving scene that continues to fall under the radar of the masses.

Familiar elements dot the unique sound that this octet dream up, recalling, at times, Thurston Moore's throaty howl ("Russian Song"), John Frusciante's isolated dirges ("Running Fire"), The Cure's early guitar propulsions ("High Noon") and even label mates Gorch Fock (the churning guitar intro on "Pearl Snaps"). All of the band's influences are honest and subtle, however, never intruding on the swell and static of their own burgeoning sound. The Attack Formation's greatest strength is their ability to remain passionate throughout Somebody As Anybody, giving each song its own sense of immediacy and importance.

While the band gives off a strange combination of solid songs and haphazard delivery, abstract sound collages and samples glue it all into one cohesive offering. Both spoken dialogue and mind-bending noise provide transitions throughout, adding a desirable cinematic element to the record as a whole. This is a tough trick to pull off, but Attack Formation wisely maintains the delicate balance between experimentation and grating noise. For the sonically adventurous, Somebody As Anybody is well worth seeking out.

- Crazewire

Just to get something out of the way first, and on a completely personal note, I say one of the biggest problems in rock nowadays is the limited instrumentation bands work with. Yes, it's much easier just to get two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer and proclaim yourself a rock band, but really, working on such a small scale, both numerically, timbre-wise (remember, you only got two kinds of instruments there, strings and percussion) limits you in a way that's really noticeable when you compare with another band in the genre with more varied instrumentation. Like Attack Formation. Trust me, trying to make a rock ensemble sound full sometimes ends up being just like cooking with just eggs and soya beans.

Attack Formation is, simply, an indie rock band. The thing is, they aren't limited to just some guitars, percussion and vocals. They are a modern orchestra of sorts, including stuff like electronics, wind and traditional rock instruments. To start with, that means they're already forced to, at least, arrange every instrument, so there is far more complexity here than on your average indie album. But even so, their being good doesn't come solely from including many different sounds, even if it contributes a hell of a lot.

They certainly have a taste for ‘60s rock, both in vocals and compositionally. They aren't afraid to use catchy choruses or even Black Sabbath-like bass riffs, but they don't abuse them either. They aren't afraid to use melodrama and pompous interludes, but they don't shove them down your throat, either. And most of all, they aren't afraid to innovate even over the most common stuff you can think of (see "We Were (Always) Often w/o Money").

While that might make Attack Formation sound like a mish-mash of random segments, they really aren't. They are experimental, sure, but their songwriting is still cohesive and it's really an easy album to listen to, because it's so laid-back. There really are no abrupt changes or anything like that, so much that you might actually wonder just how they manage to keep the same atmosphere going for a whole song.

And that's the good part: Every song is like a different story. For example, "Black Magic" is an IDM-influenced piece (think Aphex Twin on the Richard D. James album) while "Similar Sideways Glance" is mostly hard indie rock with xylophone (think...The New Pornographers with a mini-orchestra, a Hammond organ and synths).

Think of We Are Alive in Tune as a kind of crash course through rock and indie in general, going from brief glimpses of twee to full blown punk pieces with ska-like wind instruments... and sometimes even psycho "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida"-influenced rock songs. Definitely not what we're used to seeing in the mostly conservative indie scene.

It is great, but it's also a little bit too short and not as polished as one would expect, as sometimes the instruments are treated too uniformly and end up cluttering. Get it, if only for the sheer variation and uncommon instrumentation. Future releases should be much, much better. (7.5/10) - Maelstrom

Attack Formation has done it again by denying any possibility of definition. They are not a band but an organization of musicians, and their music is anything but passive, its ever-shifting sounds, beats, and interludes pull in the listener and force them to pay attention. Staying true to their Formation in their newest album, We Are Alive In Tune, the band as a whole composed only 5 of the 13 tracks, with the remaining tracks composed and recorded by individual band members including Reaganometry, You and Me Falconry, Butcher Bear, Strong Silent Type, and Horse Rappaport.

With such a mix of artists and tracks one might think the album would have an incoherent sound, but the individual recordings of band members only add more depth and coherence to the group’s collaborations, as well as the album as a whole. Throughout the album, Attack Formation’s sound shifts from punk, to love-sick emo, to noise experimentation, to urban meandering, to audience telemetering, to tinges of pop and rock, all the while producing an album that works as a whole and keeps your attention listen after listen.

We Are Alive In Tune is filled with electronic breakbeats, spacey synth landscapes, low utterances to blasts of trumpet, noise explosions, and glitch syncopation, with Attack Formation never forgetting to infuse the song with a hook whether it be a dancey rhythm or a melodic overlaying. On the second track, “Black Magic,” Reaganometry delivers his mix of electronic glitches, emotional synths, echoing lyrics, and diffuse jungle beats complimented by rock-style drum fills, while “Similar Sideways Glance,” which features the whole band, begins “Tension in the room, Brown eyes look at me, Abundance in anger” with the music conveying a palpable tension and frustration just before the song breaks into the release of a driving dance beat. Throughout the album the lyrics compliment the music, even when the lyrics seem nonsensical.

So, when the last track of the album, “Study Break Dancing”, asks “who is Attack Formation?” the album responds with a cacophony of sounds and utterances, an avant-garde onslaught of expression without pretense, and breaks the borders of music and thought. Attack Formation never fails to amaze, surprise, and inspire!

- Amber Rademacher - Austin Sound