Customer Reviews

Metropolitan

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album is defiantly a must have for basically anyone due to the nature of the tracks shifting to fit almost anyone that enjoys music for what it should be. Metropolitan has melodies to fit into a peaceful soothing setting, which is great for any day when you need to relax. The energy put into this album has been very well represented due to the beautiful production styles of Wade Alin. The singer (Lauren Cheatham) pours her soul into the lyrics and does an effective job of pulling you into the music itself. The musical guests make for even more diversity throughout the album. The album inspires the listener to see that there is a lot more to music then face value. This is the finest production and album as a whole I've experienced this whole year.

Fans of Bjork, Portishead, or any kind of music that's been described as "downtempo" will be in audio-heaven with this release. "Metropolitan" manages to sound somber without being depressing, intelligent without being pretentious, and relaxing without being boring and forgettable. While the programming and musicianship is top-notch throughout the entire album, Lauren Cheatham is truly the main attraction. Her soft, beautiful voice fits the tone and mood of the songs perfectly.

I'm having a hard time putting to words how much I like this album, so I'll leave it at this: "Metropolitan" is nothing short of stunning. If this isn't the best album of 2005, it's definitely in the top five.

Atomica's genre isn't the kind of music I usually listen to, so I'm not your typical fan/panegyrist. Being a child of the '80s, I like my drums big, my guitars overdriven, and my vocals screaming. Having said that, Atomica has put together a beautiful piece of work in 'Metropolitan.' One of the album's strongest points is Wade Alin's very polished and balanced production. Unlike so much other 'electronica,' Atomica's music doesn't lean so heavily Alin's electronics or Percy Trayanov's bass that the more 'organic' elements get washed out. Matt Cordier's drumming is refreshingly present; his cymbal hits are surprisingly crisp in the finished recordings. There's even room for (gasp!) the odd guitar solo by Elliott Randall, who's work here sounds like something Terje Rypdal would write while in the grip of a Scandinavian winter (his lead on 'Recent' is particularly doom-laden). I thought guitar solos didn't exist anymore; I certainly wouldn't have thought I'd have to go to a down-tempo album to find a really good one. And who knew my girl Lauren had such a voice! Alin must be proud to have such a group of musicians bringing his songwriting to life.

Metropolitan is truly an amazing work of art. Lauren Cheatham brings new meaning to "artist" and "vocalist". The smooth tones in what is labeled "electronic music" complement Cheatham's voice. Atomica may be the new sound of the millennium.

In the beginning, Positron Records was known by many as the house that Sister Machine Gun built. They needed a place where they could be seen, and their fanbase certainly didn't die when Wax Trax found itself faltering. This branched out into other mediums that were more about Chris Randall than anything (Micronaut was a good example of that), but soon Positron was signing all types of sounds that branched out and were nice to here. Everything from industrial to slow trip hop seemed to live under the same roof, and that's where I stumbled - and it certainly was stumbling - that brought Automica and myself together.
Personally, I couldn't be happier about that.

When I First heard Automica, I kept thinking about how soothing the sounds were, how much the electronic oceans melded with the crashing audio surf in such a beautiful fashion, and how I really hadn't heard anything that sounded so serene in such a long time. That's not to say that I haven't heard music that fit into each of these guidelines but, honestly, I kept thinking of how rich and vibrant the soundscapes created were. All of the songs seem to have that same type of fit, too, going into a smooth type of electronica with amazing vocals attached. This doesn't mean they aren't distinctive tracks quite the opposite, in fact. This is just to say that these are the little gems that are not-so-easily noticed but that shine beautifully when they begin to glimmer.

For people not accustomed to the game of genres and labels, there are clips provided to listen to and there is a lot to be said in the short breaths exerted in these lines. You have a beautiful vocalist singing songs to a backdrop of slow beats that neither overwhelm or are overwhelmed, and you have her addressing both matters of the heart and matters of life and everything in-between.
I definitely love the way this album sounds, and would recommend it to people who like to listen to things beautifully constructed.

Review by: Mark Teppo, Igloo Magazine (www.igloomag.com)
(09.11.05) The last time I saw Wade Alin, he was on stage surrounded by a crashing surf of buzz-saw guitars and chaotic electronics, howling into a microphone as if he was straining to vomit up his heart. The band was Christ Analogue, one of those vaguely industrial machines filled with the clatter of wrecked machinery, brittle electronics and ephedrine-fueled guitars. Imagine my surprise to hear Metropolitan, the record by his new project, Atomica, where the angst is traded for heartbreak, the guitars for violins and the cold clatter of jilted machinery has been swapped out for the warm morphine drip of a trip-hop inflected turntable. It's not that Alin's gone soft on us; he's just deigned to remove the metallic shell and let us touch the tender flesh beneath.

It isn't his voice you will hear on Metropolitan. Discovering evocative chanteuse Lauren Cheatham when he first relocated to Chicago (following many years in New York City), Alin realized her voice was the anchor of the record. She is the elegiac angel who adds an organic warmth to the songs as she channels Portishead's Beth Gibbons through a veil of thick silk while Alin surrounds her with a wealth of strings and brass and electronic equipment.

"Bittersweet" hangs on the cusp of a turntable loop, a tiny cry of warped vinyl that sounds like it was rescued from the Portishead Dummy sessions and let loose in Alin's studio to make small bird noises from the corner of the room while Cheatham's fragile ballad is laid down over a bed of strings. Static from an old record haunts Alin's siren in "Gun" as she sighs through an old microphone: "If I knew now / How to learn from the past / I would be who I wanted to be." A rusted loop plays behind the sordid rhythm section (stolen from the corner jazz lounge where they've been trapped for a decade or more) and tiny ephemera from a phantom guitar whispers and pleads beneath her voice, lending desperation to her sad tale. Percussion echoes through "Pollen," the sort of reverberation which rattles throughout an abandoned building (or heart) while Cheatham's narrative voice travels through a bustling city (that echo of sound again) and yet never manages to not be alone.

A bleak despair bleeds through Alin's retrospective re-creation of his time in New York City, and Lauren Cheatham adds such a weary worldliness to his lyrics that to listen to Metropolitan is to hear how a city can break your heart over and over again. But Alin's efforts through Atomica aren't to break things, but to move through and rectify the destruction of the past. He wants to gather all the pieces and fit them together once again. "You can't say I've never tried to love you / You can't say I've never tried to die for you," Cheatham sings in "Salt," and her voice, tarnished by the persistent weight of the city, remains pure at its core. The music of Metropolitan is suffused with the melancholy that so pervades trip-hop but Alin and company never succumb to the entropic end inherent in its decay.