The Ataris - 'October in This Railroad Earth' (Quick Review)

It's been a long while since The Ataris formally released an official EP or album of new music. They've had songs, acoustic stuff, and album teasers, but their long awaited Graveyard Of The Atlantic has yet to see the light of day. With that being said fans of the band can finally rejoice because the band has released a new EP of music titled October in This Railroad Earth. The first song on the EP "Slacker Rock" starts the EP off really nicely. I really enjoy the intro to the song and how it speeds up as the song really gets going. I think this may be my favorite vocal performance by Kris Roe on the EP. As a whole I like the way he delivers his vocals on this EP. He has harmony in his voice, but there is an urgency and a rashness to his delivery on most of these songs that give them a ton of energy.

The second track, "They Live, We Sleep", has some great guitar moments especially towards the end of the song when a screeching, wailing lead riff adds some nice grunge sounding sheen to the song.The EP is six songs that run by at a pretty quick pace. The songs sound similar mostly to bands like The Descendents, Fugazi, Hüsker Dü, or ALL mixed with the more classic The Ataris sound. The closing track "Silver Turns To Rust" is one of the big standouts on the EP. It has the classic punk meets pop approach; it flies by and it's very catchy. It reminds me a lot of vintage MxPx, in a great way.

The EP definitely has the pop tendencies I've come to really enjoy from The Ataris, but it leans more on the punk side of The Ataris style wise. The vintage style recording, done mostly in first takes, has created one of the more energetic raw "punk" sounding The Ataris releases to date. For a band that has kept fans waiting on an official release for so long October in This Railroad Earth delivered what I wanted, which was more solid, well written music from The Ataris. It's a great reminder that Kris Roe penned several great pop/punk albums for the genre. It's also nice to know that it looks like he's teasing more new music on the way with another planned EP and a limited vinyl release to follow it. One can only hope that he continues to deliver quality material like this. This is worth checking out and I would recommend it!