Young as yet unsigned York three-piece Lost From Atlas are quite easily my favourite local band. They play a tight post-rock instrumental indie rock hybrid in the vain of American Football, Owls or Cap’n Jazz you know those Kinsella bands with the technical melodic tappy guitar style that sounds so distinctive, you know the stuff it often twists and turns from section to section changing time signatures or at least the perception of time signatures by flipping the groove and switching up or breaking down, I guess you could call it math-rock. It’s quite hard to pin down and that’s what I like about, there is a free flowing energy to it all that gets quite addictive. Now I’m not sure these bands I’ve mentioned above are the main influence I’ve not asked… but it they may well be in debt, well not in debt but you know inspired by some of the new school adopters of this sound, you know the likes of This Town Needs Guns and Meet Me In St. Louis from the Big Scary Monster rosters or the more post-rock crowd like Tera Melos, 65daysofstatic or even more well known types like Foals or Battles. Which is music that has been a source of enjoyment for me for some time now so when I accidentally stumble upon Lost From Atlas doing their thing so well in my local venues then it’s defiantly something I want to support.The demo EP was recorded in a home studio in a live and sexy way just drums, bass and guitar. Just five tracks long it’s a taster of things to come and captures the bands performance well. Just like in the live sets there is no let up, tracks melt into each other in one continues energetic, twisting piece of work. They are all very competent musicians and the music can be pretty technical at times but they don’t veer into guitar wank outs, you can tell this music comes out of wanting to make an interesting physical experience rather than cranking out the wank for the sake of it. The stripped back grooves, melodic shimmering guitars and tight bass are all they need to create some quality songs.
The CD or download opener ‘Interlude 1’ is a cracker plus after hearing it live it has to be one of my favourites just for the guitar technique I like to call ‘The Ball Scratcher’ where the volume nob is opened and closed while plucking to create a kind of gated lfo type effect... if I’ve got my synth speak correct, I can’t think of another way of saying it apart from that’s ‘The Ball Scratcher’ as it really does look like he’s playing and well you get the idea... The demo also features a live version of ‘Smalltown Gypsy Massacre’ which has some really nice harmonics that ring out in a melodic fashion before they throw some rock shapes with some stop start bursts of riffs and a tapped out disco section. Maybe the highlight of the demo for me though is ‘Tom Robinson Must Die!’ a remix of this also appears on the CD with housey piano’s and a peak time indie remix feel, it’s a pretty good effort really but the original is the one for me. A catchy melodic opening with a nice bouncy, breezy feel kicks it off before some scratchy riffs pick up the pace a little. The spaced out mid section is a treat too with fast tappy parts and tight locked grooves, things really build when the riffs get rocking again though and before you know it a full on chorus of gang vocals take the track higher and its over.
Lost From Atlas are currently unsigned, playing many gigs and recording their debut album in a home studio. But for now you can download their debut EP either from their myspace or bellow.
Download: Lost From Atlas – EP
http://www.myspace.com/lostfromatlas
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