"My co-writer here at Speed, Glue and Music tells me that there are people in San Francisco that actually read this blog!! Is this true? Feel free to leave some comments or share your blogs with us! Anyway since San Francisco is showing us some love, I thought I would review a SF an Oakland band that as far as I know hasn't really received much exposure yet (I could surf the internet to verify whether or not this is true, but I'm lazy). This is a band that Mr. Destroy the Scene and I randomly saw 3-4 years ago, by accident. We had left our luxurious apartment at the intersection of Mission and Precita and ducked into El Rio for a few drinks, and this band was playing. And we were blown away! Never before had I accidentally ended up watching a band I liked so much. And then... I didn't hear anything about them for years. Not, in fact, until I was board-operating an interview with Dub Trio at KUSF, and they mentioned that Atomic Bomb Audition were opening for them at the Hemlock. Did I know anything about this band, they inquired? Yeah! I said, suddenly remembering the band I unintentionally saw years back. What do they sound like, the dude from Dub Trio asked. "They sound like umm.... really heavy.... you know but also, like.... textured.... sort of shoegazey but also..... heavy" I said, and the dude from Dub Trio nodded solemnly, secretly amazed and envious at the breadth of my knowledge of music and the more technical terms pertaining to it. Anyway, I wasn't able to go to that show, and then next I heard of them is when I came across this album, Light Will Remain. Apparently this is their second album, and I'm curious to hear what their first album sounds like, because by this release they already have a very full and well-developed sound. Much like contemporary Deftones (yeah I said Deftones), Atomic Bomb Audition incorporate a lot of 90's indie, shoegaze and emo into their sound, but much, much louder and heavier. Except the Deftones ended up in their heavy-shoegaze incarnation coming from nu-metal, whereas this band seems much more natural in their melodic sensibilities. They also incorporate a lot of post-rock and prog into their sound, and the result is long, complex songs that alternate between lush melodies and heavy riffing (I just barfed a little as I wrote "lush melodies"). At various times, this band reminds me of Built to Spill, Dinosaur Jr (in particular the vocal melodies at the end of "Copernicus: Perigee"), Mogwai, Isis, Amesoeurs, The Angelic Process (who RULE and I will definitely write about soon) and Explosions in the Sky. Yet at no point do they sound derivative of any of those acts- they have a really interesting and unique sound, and I'm eager to see what they do next."

http://speedglueandmusic.blogspot.com/2009/07/atomic-bomb-audition-light-will-remain.html

Well, for one thing we've been laying low on the live show front. It's really hard to get a good show together after all. That said, we DO have a really nice show lined up for next week, Thursday April 30th (that's 2009 for blog posterity). We'll be playing with Aerial Ruin, which is Eric Moggridge on acoustic guitar and vox (and sometimes Eric Peterson on 2nd guitar--NOT Eric Peterson for Testament mind you; he's still got a job after all!) playing really beautiful, stoic, minimal minor dirges. Haunting stuff. We'll be playing as well with some good friends of mine, EYES, who've been tearing it up live recently with a spate of awesome attacks on SF! They are resolutely, kraut-y, psych-y and just loud and mesmerizing as all get out. And then will be us and if you're here presumably you know what we sound like. This show will be the live debut of our new epic piece, "There Are Horizons," which conflates among other things, Nietzsche, golden sail ships, rust-filled oceans, and vast echo'd canyons. Hope you join us!

-A

Our recent album, Light Will Remain, was listed (in no particular order past 1-10) on a list of Best Albums of 2008. Check it out. We're a little better than Deerhoof, but way better than Coldplay and Metallica's "Death Magnetic"

- brian

...new sonic tomes are forged. Things are still long, clocking in at about 15'--though we've got one that might only be about 4'. So yeah, still with the extremes...and that's cool. I'm fascinated: I listen to "Width of a Circle" by Bowie and he says an awful lot in 8'. Fuck he says more in 4' than most folks do. Can we justify needing your ears for 7+ minutes than he does? Obviously it's not a one to one correlation and I think I might put myself under unnecessary stress to imagine we have similar musical goals to David Bowie but... damn, these songs are long.

And yet as we chip away we know in our heart of hearts that not a moment is wasted. I originally hypothesized that as our last album was the "light" one, this will almost certainly be the "dark" one. Having posited that about 8 months ago, I haven't necessarily kept it in mind but damn if that's not how it's shaping up. Very dark in matter and tune and just heavy, heavy, heavy. Metal riffage is taking the fore and damn if it's not satisfying--gargantuan sides of tyrannosaurus flesh pummeled by redwood trunks this is! Resurrecting some spectres of Death, Morbid Angel, good-era Metallica, also bolstered by the re-animations of Big Business, High on Fire, our mates in Lesbian, and Mastodon (*cough, cough*). Still, of course, beset on all sides by halos and balladeering, this time really owing something (from the guitar standpoint at least) to Mr. Neil Young's Crazy Horse. Lotsa stark, echo-plexed, tear-stained chord stabs and falsetto vox.

Can't wait to share it with you all. More to come...

-A

Greetings,
In anticipation of the completed completion of the our new album "Light Will Remain" we have made a few changes to our site. In the coming month the album will be mastered (for real) and production will begin of a limited edition version of the album. Excerpts of have been posted to give you a taste of what lies within. As soon as we get the results of a market research and establish our re-branding efforts we should be able to secure corporate sponsorship and get one of our songs in an iPod commercial (does Apple have 20 minutes commercials?). We are all proud to be at this point and can't wait to share the final product of "Light Will Remain" with you all.
release the hounds,
- brian

Score: 7.5/10
"I've recently come to the realization that any assiduous reader of Douglas Adams will confirm: all things are connected. Reading our review of Mike Patton's latest effort spun me into a nostalgic craze, forcing me to bask all day in the man's best musical pieces, one after the other. For the first time in several months, I found myself literally bathing in Avant-Rock music. It's in this atypical setup that I was presented with my next assignment:The Atomic Bomb Audition's Eleven Theatres. Happy coincidence? Nay, merely the proof that any event is part of a gigantic network of causes and consequences.

Outside of jazz, and even within it in the opinion of a few severe minds, the word "fusion," when related to music, is tainted with a negative mark. For that reason, I won't use it to describe the fantastic genre-blending ABA fashions. The magnitude of the crossover here is nothing short of overwhelming, and goes even further than what the famed acts of the genre: along with the usual taste of metal, hardcore, psychedelica, post-rocky atmospheres and various sampling techniques, one finds here surf guitar reminiscent of Dick Dale, the feel of old spaghetti western soundtracks, tightly crafted pop structures, and even thoughtful ambient passages.

When it comes to the process of writing music, having too much freedom has historically proved to have lethal tendencies, creating incomprehension, hermetic niches, and in the worst cases, extremely bad material. This is where ABA separates itself from the never ending waves of new artists in the realm of avant-garde; they show accurate and scrupulous songwriting skills. Every single heavy riff hits home, every beat change is on point, and every dissonant note is controlled. From the engaging drum breaks to the fast-strumming guitars, each instrument flows perfectly with one another, giving a strong taste of melody and harmony to a genre that came to lack them too often.

Such synergy asks for production of epic proportions. No matter how good the musicians are together, it takes an accomplished producer to give their performance a fair result once on record. The Atomic Bomb Audition found theirs in Norman Teale, who now also participates in the band's live show. I can't emphasize this enough; the production on Eleven Theatres is close to perfection. Each instrument is prominent exactly when it needs to be, every single measure of the record is treated as a highlight, given the exact balance it asks for, in the most efficient way possible. The only reproach that could be made lies in the tracklisting, as the second half of the record seems a bit weaker than the first. And even that is being picky.

ABA achieved a work of art; all the while respecting the touch of craziness avant-garde listeners ask for. This album is one to be played loud, and constantly. What strikes me the most is the maturity they show at such an early stage in their career; I had to offer countless reminders to myself that this is their first effort. With a second album on the way that seems to match the performance of Eleven Theatres, The Atomic Bomb Audition have the skills to establish themselves as leaders of this scene if they play their cards right." -Samy Bennaoui

http://thesilentballet.com/dnn/Reviews/tabid/54/ctl/Details/mid/438/ItemID/1354/Default.aspx

Well, regular documentation of the process sort of stopped. That's because we've been doing a lot of shorter sessions for various things on the album that we'd like to keep secret for now. But suffice to say, the tracks are piling up and unlike the last one, I feel like this overdubbing process defines the contours of the emotional content more thoroughly rather than just creating atmosphere indulgently. That's gayspeak for "it sounds massive!!!" In the vein of Tool's "Aenima" record we are recording a bunch of interstitial tracks to "tie the room together." These are turning out just as crucial as the full-on songs (and pretty much all feature performances by the entire band as well, albeit not with the our usual implements). This band in its current form is a heartwarmingly functional unit and couldn't be a better group of symbiotic campers. We've got a couple more friends to record and then we're done. Then mix, master, and label-seeking commences. We will be posting samples by the end of March, beginning of April. Can't wait to share it with you all...

Cheers,
Alee

In a grueling 8pm-8am session, we finished the foundation tracking of the 2nd album last night, just barely falling into some Jack Torrance-esque demeanors. What do I mean by foundation tracking? Well, we're all recording live: electros, guitar, bass, drums. Then we piece it together. Then we fix stuff. Then we record more things that go on top of that and also a few extra little ditties that will go in between these epics (most of that will remain secret for now). And following that tech stuff like mixing and mastering, etc.

The results are sounding amazing. We can't wait 'til we reach the top of this here tower. Come and watch at El Rio this Wednesday night and we will be presenting selections from this new record.

Cheers,
Alee

It's absolutely overwhelming to consider how many separate sessions we are going to embark on to finish our upcoming 2nd recording. But we are officially one day deep into foundation tracking, and things are sounding massive. We recorded "Copernicus" (our 20' path through dark aorta and red dwarfs), a howling at the moon improvisation, and a THICK cover of "Plainsong" by The Cure. Not too much to say except this album is just going to rule. Thanks to Leif for his inscrutable skills and much-needed presence behind the grand mixing console in the SSL 9K room. Once again, lots of cables, mikes, cymbals, iso booths, and Crystal Geyser flavored fizz.

Oh, and Norman cried. For real. He got REALLY into it...

lv,
Alee