After a long weekend of debauchery in western mass, I wasn't too keen on seeing a show sunday night, but since I had already bought the ticket, and have been quite impressed by the free music on their their blog, I knew I had to go. Atlas Sound is the spin-off band of Bradford Cox, who needed another avenue to quench his insatiable creative musical energy. Now, I've seen Deerhunter, and was never really blown away by them live, mostly because their heavy-stoned-psych sound has been done a thousand times before, but Atlas is a different animal. Much like Spencer Krug with his spin-off band Sunset Rubdown, Mr. Cox seems much more comfortable and enthusiastic about playing in the Sound than with his original group. As for the music, when they play classic Atlas tracks, it sounds gorgeous, with all the shoegazey dreaminess we know and love (they tried to improvise a couple of covers, specifically a Blue Oyster Cult song, that didn't come out too well -- you have to practice that shit first dudes!!). Anyway, one advantage to seeing Atlas live is that you can hear all the lyrics, which are excellent, and can get buried in effects on record. Mr. Cox must've been in a good mood because he was practically doing stand-up between songs, bouncing around the stage. His stage banter is unique to say the least. I didn't quite understand what he meant when he asked bandmate Adam Forkner to "take us to the field of gated reverb and shoot us in the back of the head," but it accomplished the desired artistic effect. For their encore, the entire band came out on stage topless (even the lady bassist with all boobs-a-flyin') just to make sure everyone blogged about the show the next day. I was going to anyway dudes, you guys rule! I even bought a shirt. =)
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