Smashing through the speakers and crashing into anything and everything that gets in its path, the riff-rock adrenaline that comes barreling out of the ethers at us in “Gone Away,” one of the three songs found on Strings of Atlas’ new EP How Far We’ve Come, is unstoppably captivating no matter what volume you’re experiencing it at, but for the most intriguing results, I recommend listening to this track – and the two that join it on the record – at maximum volume. Borrowing from the likes of Eddie Glass and Josh Homme, Atlas Cage brings the thunder like no other in Strings of Atlas’ latest release, which just might be their most guitar-centric to date.
The riffs aren’t the only element of heaviness in this mix – in fact, in the title cut and “Not Over,” they’re easily rivaled by the gargantuan bassline, and even Cage’s own vocal. Muscularity was of upmost importance to Strings of Atlas when crafting the sonic shards that would ultimately comprise How Far We’ve Come, and although they’ve never been much for shortchanging their fans with underwhelming musicality (electric or otherwise), I think they effectively raise the bar not only for themselves but for the scene that spawned them in the first place here.
Cage’s lead vocal in the title track brings to mind Homme’s QOTSA/Screaming Trees bandmate Mark Lanegan, whose voice remains one of the most underrated points of interest in Seattle grunge lore, but there’s nothing derivative about the performance we find in this song. The passion that the mastermind behind Strings of Atlas puts into this most recent string of studio recordings is something that even his longtime followers are going to be impressed by this spring, and I myself – expecting a lot out of this EP, mind you – don’t see myself forgetting his work here anytime soon.
I really like that, despite the polished nature of the production quality in this record, the master mix still feels a little gritty and rough around the edges, alluding to Strings of Atlas’ forever-tethering to the American underground and, more specifically, the fans that have kept it alive through the last decade. “Gone Away” and “Not Over” could just as easily have been stylized with a more radio-ready finish than they were, but instead of softening the overdrive and streamlining his vocal, Atlas Cage maintained the aesthetical integrity of his work as it stood, and it’s we, the audience, who inevitably reap the rewards of his deed in this tracklist.
If you like heavy rock with a take no prisoners attitude and a molten-hot melodicism behind it, I think that Strings of Atlas’ How Far We’ve Come was crafted especially with you in mind this spring, and I would recommend getting ahold of it the minute it drops this coming April. How Far We’ve Come is short, simple and to the point in every way that counts in this genre, but for what it lacks in quantity of content, it more than compensates us for in sheer quality you just can’t find on the FM dial anymore.
Levi Colston