Atomic Bride is a nickel-bag from Seattle, WA with enough of surf-rock and Nuggets records in their collective turntables to turn a grey NW sky into a kaleidoscope of lime green clouds and dayglo sunshine. Their latest is a brief catch-up extended player called Electric Order, the follow up to the band's 2012 full-length Dead Air.
Packed with equal amounts of attitude and aptitude, Electric Order ads a bit of 21st
Century discontent to their spastic arrangements. Think Gun Club with ADHD in a
coed Econoline and you’ll have at least the slightest notion of what just
transpired immediately after the thing peters out after 4 songs.
The call/response blast between vocalists Chris Cool and
Astra keeps the delivery snappy, while the rest of Atomic Bride's musical
intuition is tight and impressive. I’d bet a $5 cover charge that this
quintet’s real home is on stage, as Electric
Order seems awfully hard to contain on magnetic tape.
Which is a minor issue as the production values of this mini
certainly doesn’t do much justice to the band’s perceived strength. The rhythms
are tepid even when they’re obviously killing it, and the band’s penchant for
surf guitars and retro-minded approach needs a bit more danger and feedback to
achieve the sonic meltdown that Atomic Bride are clearly capable of. Clearly,
one of the things that is missed in all of this garage rock drama is letting
the needles get buried on the v.u. meter every now and then.
The good news is that Electric
Order is compelling enough to warrant further examination while they work
on getting Atomic Bride through their honeymoon phase in the studio.
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