Looking back on The Ataris

By Meg Walsh

Published Feb. 27, 2007

Very few people I know enjoy reliving the days when they were bopping along to late '90s, early 2000s pop punk. Most of the people who were jamming away with me then now get their kicks from whatever "cool" black-hair-dye-swoop-bangs band is in the spotlight for the next 10 minutes and deny the days we wore sweatbands and trucker hats. Turns out our old bands have done that as well.

The Ataris will always be the sound of the summer before my junior year of high school. It is the sound associated with wristbands, local shows and cruising in my '92 Ford Thunderbird. For me, the Ataris were a symbol of young love and rebellion. But like me, The Ataris had to grow up some time. I grew up and went to college. They grew up and got lame.

I remember sitting in my senior year journalism class and reading about the 2005 release of Welcome the Night, and my heart thumped in my chest. I wish they would have released it then. I could have at least gotten excited instead of finding out they had put out a CD a few days after it came out in 2007.

The album starts with a heavy song, and this is no So Long, Astoria. The crazy part is both tracks start with a buzzing, distorted guitar, only this time the chords are sinister, not light-hearted. Kris Roe's vocals are not that of the Roe of my youth. They are darker, deeper and richer. They sound like the typical alternative rock vocals of today, not the young, bright sounds of the boy in the late '90s who sang to me about never having to wait in line at Disneyland. The first song is called "Not Capable of Love," but don't get it confused with 2001's release End is Forever's "Giving Up on Love." No, my friend, this is entirely different. In the track, Roe sings, "I'm not capable of love/ That kind of love/ That I felt when I was 21." Turns out he's also not capable of making the same music that gained him his fans.

I know what you're thinking: "But Meg, they have to mature and progress." Except the Ataris haven't matured, they have only fit more into the mold of what is now popular music. They are on the verge of "hardcore." You know, the kind that isn't really hardcore, but instead just angry about nothing and gloomy sounding.

"Cardiff-by-the-Sea" has the sound of a matured version of the Ataris. Roe's vocals are still that lame Creed-esque level of deep, but the music is more bouncy like the older stuff. But the echoey effects and Roe's constant slur from low to high are bothersome. "Act V, Scene IV: And So It Ends Like It Begins" has the most overall classic sound. This final track on the album is true to its name — the album ends almost like the sound of before it began.

"New Year's Day" is an upset from the first moment you realize the introduction is exactly the same as that of "Not Capable of Love" but without the distortion.

For the sake of the Ataris, I hoped this album would be good. I wanted them to come back and bring my youth and nostalgia with them, but I wasn't expecting something groundbreaking. I received neither. The Ataris fit into the mold and left the sound of a generation behind with an overall boring release.