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NTX Vinyl

So Long, Astoria

Currently Unavailable
CD · SONY
Not in stock
Currently Unavailable

About This Release

With a handful of indie releases and a few hectic years of touring under their belts, this release marks the Ataris big-label bow. And if the concept uniting it is an ode to the power of memory--a conceit attributed to Richard Hell, but one that ironically might as well have originated with the likes of Billy Joel--Kris Roe and company blitz their way through it with kinetic power and hooks to spare. But therein lies the rub: Fans will find this an album rife with positive energy, bright, well-constructed songs, and upbeat deliveries (if sometimes in service of awkward intellectual pretensions like "Unopened Letter to the World"'s parallels between Kurt Cobain and no less than Emily Dickinson); cynics may hear at as further evidence that punk and alternative rock have been co-opted in service of formulas as well-honed--and rigid--as anything the dreaded Corp Rock '80s ever yielded. Still, if play-it-to-the-back-rows, unabashed power-pop is what the Ataris were after here, they've delivered it with nigh perfection, right down to a slick, pumped up cover of Don Henley's classic-rock warhorse "The Boys of Summer."

Tracklist

Disc 1
1 So Long, Astoria
2 Takeoffs and Landings
3 In This Diary
4 My Reply
5 Unopened Letter to the World
6 Saddest Song, The
7 Summer '79
8 Hero Dies in This One, The
9 All You Can Ever Learn Is What You Already Know
10 Boys of Summer, The
11 Radio #2
12 Looking Back on Today
13 Eight of Nine
14 I Won't Spend Another Night Alone - (hidden track)
15 Saddest Song, The - (acoustic version, hidden track)
The Ataris
So Long, Astoria
CD · N
Unavailable