Formed in New Brunswick, New Jersey, home to excellent Hardcore in the shape of Ensign, Lifetime and Deadguy (as well as not so great artists as Midtown, The Bouncing Souls and Streetlight Manifesto) in 2016, Atom Driver can be described as something of a supergroup featuring as it does the likes of Mark Segal (ex-Boss Jim Gettys) – Guitar, Justin Ingstrup (ex-Good Clean Fun) – Bass, Mike Polilli (Buzzkill) – Drums and recent transplant Chris “Crispy” Corvino of Deadguy/Second Arrows recruited in 2020 on Vocals.
The band have a string of EP's to their name debuting in 2017 with both Slackjaw and In The West, then 2019's Here They Come, The Hornets and Is Anything Alright in 2021. The band are currently hard at work creating a full-length debut but to satiate fans in the meantime they have brought us yet another EP in the shape of Occupants. The EP's fantastic artwork comes courtesy of Drummer Mike Polilli and showcases nature at its cruelest, somewhat indicative of what we can perhaps expect sonically. The band have also been part of Nefarious Industries hugely eclectic roster, a label which features everything from Death-Metal to Noise, Dreamy Folk, Experimental Jazz weirdness, Electro and more, though Occupants will be independently released by the band themselves. With all this pre-amble I'm sure you're thirsty to hear whether its any good or not. So with that said let's press on...
'Occupants' is the longest track on the EP at nearly three minutes and is demonstrative of the band's myriad musical styles and influences. There are strong hints of John Reis fronted outfits as Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes which is a sound that can be described as Garage-Rock infused Post-Hardcore. Throw in elements of Tomahawk style Alt-Metal weirdness and Proggy Math-Rock dexterity for good measure and you have all the ingredients of a fantastic opener, which it is. 'Say Anything You Want' ups the tempo significantly and is a little Thrashier in the style of vintage Motörhead. Its certainly a good deal more direct than its predecessor with plenty of kickass Rock 'N' Roll but minus the ego, excesses and embarrassing tawdry cliches. The track also runs contrary to the kind of bland Hatebreed Metalcore that is annoyingly ubiquitous now (the type that encourages that absurd kung-fu style of moshing), the lyrics to The Dead Kennedys 'Chickenshit Conformist' “So eager to please, peer pressure decrees” thankfully don't apply here. The accompanying video created by Drummer Polilli showcases the track's high energy and is certainly something I'd recommend checking out. Superb all round. 'Dale Nixon' for those in the Hardcore know, references the pseudonym Greg Ginn utilized on albums such as My War and coincidentally the sound on this, the shortest track on the record, has a gnarly Black Flag feel to it. Discordant Jazzy Riffing, yelled Vocals, Proto Sabbath inspired Sludge-Metal, all the trademarks are there, but there's also a Jesus Lizard sensibility present too with all the strong Noise-Rock intonations. This is probably my favourite track on the record and a brilliant conclusion to what has been a stunning stop-gap piece of work.
As you may have guessed, there was nothing about Occupants I didn't like. Sometimes music of this variety can make the mistake of packing in way too much, resulting in music that drags on for far too long rendering the whole thing frankly pretentious, annoyingly tedious and exhaustive. That Atom Driver haven't is a testament to both their skills and experience as musicians. Roll on the debut, I'll be there to review it in a heartbeat.
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