No Radio

The radio is on and I hear a bunch of nonsense. Reviews and diatribes by a guy named Mitch.

I Am The Avalanche- Avalanche United

I Am The Avalanche’s second record was a long time in the making/waiting.  Contract disputes and all kinds of legal issues with the now defunct Drive-Thru Records (Who released their first record) lead to years of waiting.  Brooklyn, NY’s I Am The Avalanche, obviously didn’t give up for six years and despite six years of acoustic demos and live bootlegs floating around, we finally get Avalanche United.  Back with all of the energy and punch of a band that’s been forced inactive for six years, Vinnie Caruana and co deliver a record that’s solid and memorable.

The record’s first track, ‘Holy Fuck’, is a track that’s easily something that could have fit with either The Movielife’s catalog or the first IATA record.  Songs about change and growing are usually pretty killer in the middle of records, but I can’t find a better fir for this song.  Inevitably about the dissolution of Drive-Thru records and the legal battles that ensued, it’s a straight punch to the gut right off the bat.  ’Brooklyn Dodgers’ picks up right where the last record left, infectious and energetic, it gets the full-band treatment that it deserved.  Despite two killer tracks right off the bat, as you get to the middle, it starts to pull back.  It might be the fact that this record took six years to make, and the songs manifested themselves in a whole new way, or the fact that ‘Amsterdam’ just feels cheaply big and it’s following song feels rather filler like with a cheesy riff and cliché drums.  

Songs like ‘Is This Really Happening?’, ‘Dead Friends’, and ‘The Gravedigger’s Argument’ are all great examples of what IATA is capable of.  Hook-y pop punk that does not feel shitty written and full of cliché riffs and faux-breakdowns.  Disappointingly, the only other, truly standout track is ‘You’ve Got Spiders’ and the rest of it exists in a safe zone.  It’s not a bad thing, IATA has been waiting and have had a lot of time to fine tune a bunch of parts and it shows.  The record is solid, from start to finish, nothing that I immediately want to skip over or makes me turn it off.  The band’s grown and I’m happy to see that.  

Overall, this is a great, catchy record.  It’s hooky, it’s on my fourth time around this month, and it’s only been out for a little while now.  Check it out now on Surrender All.

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