Album - The Airborne Toxic Event

This could be a bit tricky, so lets get it out of the way immediately, 'I was wrong and I'm sorry'. I bet that's got a few of you thinking 'who the hell is writing this then?' As way of an explanation there are extenuating circumstances.

Having declared to all and sundry at Leeds Festival that this lot will be a bit shouty, they turned out not to be and instead bloody marvellous live. I've had the album for about 8 months and after a cursory couple of listens I filed it under 'not bad but a bit shouty'.

Rich had recommended the album as something I would definitely like, and after two whole plays through I had it down as one decent song and told him so........mmmhh

This one really is decent - Shift and click

Then back in about March my pal Dave said 'come and see this lot in Manchester, you'll love them'. 'Na one song mate'.......mmmhh

After Leeds I decided to give the album another go, well they were both right and its exactly the sort of music i love. And a bit of background

ATE are based in LA and started way back in 2006. They have toured and toured and toured since then having a very short break to write the album. Now for the extenuating circumstances and I quote

I usually just scream through the set but now we have to lower everything and sing

So I was right all along ...phew. It turns out the lead singer got a really bad throat disease about 6 months ago and so everything changed a bit.


Now back to the album. Its filled with happy songs that have a knack of almost reminding you of another song or another band you used to love. The clever bit is that's its lots of different bands and not close enough to sound like a covers band. Having said I'm going to try to avoid comparisons, here are some of the things I almost recognised


Big Country, Fountains of Wayne,Orange Juice,The Smiths, Springsteen, A baseline from the Jam, The Strokes, Early Libertines, Hot Chip, The Vapours, The Chesterfields, Hoodoogurus, Calling Autumn, Gene, Gaslight Anthem,Tom Petty and even The Hold Steady but all over a New Order style dance beat....i.e. not really dance at all a bit like the Roses weren't really. And there are loads more bits I'm still working on. Hope that's clear then.

The bottom line is you can jump around to it, dance to it, sing in the car to it and listen to it loudly in a quiet room. It takes a hell of an album to pull off that trick. So go and buy it.

The bands website - click on the music player when you get there

Or listen on Myspace

And finally I'm going to see them again in November in Manchester.........I bet they are really shouty too.