A new release from Atticast has a spacious and grungy tonality that reminds me of classic, underground alt-rock bands of the '90s. The sonic drive and tonality of it all contribute to this.
"Counting Sheep" is an addictive progression that grabs you pretty quickly and this energy gives you the vibe of a live performance. Everyone seems like they're feeding off each other throughout this track and the way the vocals bounce between the guitars is brilliant.
That classic '90s rock aesthetic is really there and you can hear some of these kinds of influences throughout the track's course.
Aside from the classic alternative rock sound, you have vast undertones, a little bit of a punk approach, and that grungy, slightly thrashy feel with the guitar performances especially.
The drumming on this track is pretty much everything. They push the track's drive forward and play a big hand in the whole live performance aesthetic that you get.
Throughout all of this, you have some overlapping guitar hooks I've missed in all kinds of music for a long time. You have great choruses a lot, but guitar hooks are something that used to be mandatory with great rock songs but have somehow fallen off in recent years.
That's why, listening to this track was so welcoming for me. You have some great guitar work that overlays the rhythm guitars and gives you those melodic Hooks and the vocals follow those hooks.
Those are the elements that stick with me. Those hooks bounce around in your brain for hours or even days after the song has ended and the only way to satiate that is to go listen to it again.
The whole vocal approach was great here. It's not over the top but the energy matches the band, so you get an extra layer of melody and harmony because of how the vocals are tracked.
There's something slightly rambunctious about this track as well. This may come down to that punk undertone that is a little hidden but still shows face a lot throughout the track.
It's righteousness. It's a wild side and they're not afraid to show that, especially with this single.
I love a track that you can listen to on record and immediately know that this band will be awesome to see in a live performance setting. It doesn't happen all the time but when you come across it you know it.
This track also comes with a secondary single called "You Live and You Lie", and this one takes that punk rock aesthetic to heart.
It's much faster, pure punk rock but keeps those melodies and certain kinds of vocal approaches that become sort of like staples for the band's sound.
It's edgy but again, very melodically driven. You get those melodies stuck in your head too. It's got an amazing blend of that edginess and color.
I also love how these two songs are quite different from each other but there are those elements that stay the same. That energy level is one of them.
This was an incredibly fun release from a band I'm going to be paying a lot more attention to from here on out and if you listen to these two tracks you probably will as well.
If you grow up in a certain time, listening to bands like Hum or Chore or Far, you will love these songs.
This was a killer release, and it's meant to be listened to nice and loud so be sure and do it this way.
Again, these two songs are a little different from each other but feed into that same energy and aesthetic extremely well.
Take a deep dive into this record when you can and while you're at it, check out some of their previous releases because there's a handful of drops before this that all showcase a bit of a different side to the band's artistry and approaches.
All amazing stuff though so definitely do that too.
Remember where you heard this first.
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