Atari Pilot has always been an expert in crossing generic divides. They write pop songs using rock building blocks or dance tunes by gathering pop tones and textures around them or indie songs via digital drives. Music truly made somewhere between pop and a hard place. It’s that ability to be so hard to define, so genre-hopping, to be neither one thing nor another that makes them so appealing. Perhaps, all things to all people. Or at least enough things to enough people. After all, you can’t always please everyone, but Atari Pilot comes closer than most.
For music that falls into the realms of pop, for want of a better word, there is some pretty deep stuff going on here. They have always been a very positive band and Train of Life, which kicks us off, is one of those wonderfully philosophical songs that, whilst describing the random hand that life can deal us, good and bad, make you come away feeling a desire to make the most of what you’ve been given. It doesn’t hurt that the disco beats and uplifting electronica mixed with the more traditional analogue moves and grooves that drive the song make it one of the most euphoric experiences you will have had in a long time.
And from this potent opener, they take us through all manner of polished pop highs and electro-rock reveries. Recent singles 4X/22 and No More Self Sabotage prove to be a punchy pop-rock stomper and a sophisticated dance floor anthem, respectively. Only You I Miss shows their more understated side, a subtle and supple song of distant devotion and Songs For The Struggle, the album’s sonic footnote, shows that they can break through even their own, already broad, creative boundaries and write truly unique, genre-fluid songs.
It’s been, for very valid reasons, 13 years since their debut album, reasons which I won’t go into here. All I can say is, don’t leave it so long next time, chaps. There is a desperate need for bands who are able to reinvent what pop is, could and should be about.