LITTLE ATLAS

Little Atlas' latest release Hollow is not exactly a hard album to get into. But to establish exactly how good it is is a lot harder, at least to me. The sound and style is in between neo prog and crossover in my opinion with a touch of eclectic prog (Paranoiac !). The style is quite unusual, it's most of all melodic but there are also dissonances detectable. They make the music a bit less accessible but like I said it's all in all not really hard to comprehend for an experienced progfan.

The songs are all in between 4 and 6 minutes with the exception of two out of the ten that are offered. So that's quite short for prog standards and it confirms in a way that this is not the usual neo prog which has longer compositions usually. On the other hand the songs are very compact so a lot is happening in most of them. The longest track is the second, called Silence and is the most interesting one to me. It starts calm and ambient but after three minutes the song gets to usual Little Atlas style, not too complicated that is. Because of the atmosphere it produces this is still the best song of the album in my opinion. Symbiosis is another great track.

For where the other songs are concerned: they are all of the same quality level, so pretty high but nothing truly exceptional I have to say. Final verdict is that it's a very good album just falling short for the excellence status. So I will round down to three (3,4).

Another great release fro this band, that i see is not gathering as many reviews as it deserves. The most compelling thing I have to say: as long as I start playing this album, it gives me so much pleasure from beginning to the end that, for me, it's the outcome of the CLASSICS - those so-good records that you always like, no matter what mood you're in a certain moment, and those that you don't need to convince yourself that the music on it is or must be good. Gatot wrote it's straight - yes, like, just as an example: Crime of the Century. All of the 10 songs are crafted in ways that appeal different strings in your ears, and brain (if you switch it :=)). Silence with that fantastic intro with sax, or the low-key piano undergoing in the great melodic Hiding before the final with guitar stelar pick-up. Stage rocks you until you reach Symbiosis for full fledge of emotions. The ethereal and light ballad iSpecial s really a perfect conclusion, for a work that also delight in the text level, writtena round different human mind aspects. Must have and must play on your stereo!

Here I like to pay tribute to this band, that composes and brilliantly execute music I like more: intricate and delicate, long songs with melodic passages, in between more varied tempos and rythms, not too easy to get (so that you never get bored to listen the next time), not too abstruse (so that you don't have to convince yourself that you like it...). WANDERLUST has been my introduction to LITTLE ATLAS, that led me to buy SURFACE SERENE (very goodand enjoyable, but less mature yet) and the latest HOLLOW (on the highest level of WANDERLUST). This is a CD that I listen repeatedly, when I want to make a break with the latest purchases, maybe for benchmarking? Absolute masterpiece? For the pleasure that gives in listening (and from first to last song), it couldn't be better. So, 5 stars are not excessive!

The second album from Little Atlas Surface Serene is a bit of a mixed affair. When you start your album with a riff that sounds like Nirvana´s Smells like Teen Spirit it´s bound to divide the waters in a prog world. Sometimes that is a good thing and a sign that the band moves some boundaries with their music. In the case of Little Atlas it´s just a mix of genres that will please some and annoy others. Personally I´m both pleased and a little annoyed.

The good things about Surface......is that the technical level of the musicians are high. There are some really great moments in each song and I especially enjoy the synth runs that appear in some of the songs. The little instrumental parts that Little Atlas play throughout the album are really great. It´s those parts that makes their music progressive and to some extent exciting.

The other side of their music is something I am not too fond of. It´s the American College rock side. Maybe it´s a bit unfair to compare Little Atlas with this hidious genre, but there are definitely elements, and they really get me down. Lead singer Steve Katsikas is not my cup of tea either. Again I associate him with American Collage rock. The sound on Surface Serene isn´t too good either, it´s like the balance in the mix is wrong.

Well the annoying things aside it´s an OK album and I will rate it a big 2 stars. Personally I want listen to this very much, but the quality in the compositions are allright and I´m sure that this album will have an audience somewhere.

It's quite original prog music

Having heard the previous two albums of Little Atlas, this new album "Hollow" (2007) does not surprise me musically as I am quite familiar with it. This is the kind of music that I admire in its entirety as an excellent music but it has failed to create a strong motive for me to re-spin the CD. It has happened with their previous two albums in which the CDs have been lying at shelf and I never re-spin long time ago since I got the CDs. It's probably most of the songs are straight forward with relatively minimum changes in music style from one point to another until it finishes. The opening track "Hollow" proves what I have just said. The music flows naturally in a sequence that can be followed by any music buffs - not necessary a prog man.

But at second track the band is willing to explore the music further with music horizon differs from previous track as well as any styles of its previous albums. In fact it uses an ambient opening in mellow style with the work of saxophone. The music moves slowly until in the middle of the track it moves into upbeat fast tempo with excellent arrangements. I think this is a very progressive song because it goes through multiple ups and downs with different styles.

"Paranoiac" starts beautifully with vintage organ sounds followed with a blast of music that reminds me to Spock's Beard. It's a cool intro. This is an attractive song with great combination of guitar, keyboard work in relatively fast tempo and energetic mode from start to end with some beautiful breaks through bass guitar and keyboard inventive notes in transition segments. It's a pleasure enjoying this track especially with its great keyboard solo and catchy piano work. It reminds me to Rick Wakeman but in different ways.

"Contimacious" starts nicely with acoustic guitar rhythms followed with drum work in which the tom sounds are quite unique and quite dominant followed with singing line. I can consider this is a ballad music in medium tempo. "Preying" opens with ambient piano followed with medium tempo music. This song includes a narration (a dialogue) in the middle of the track. At approx minute 2:00 the song turns into a reggae style with its unique guitar rhythm. "Orderly" starts mellow with a great piano work accompanied by acoustic guitar followed with choirs in ambient mood. The song moves into medium tempo music. "Hiding" is another ballad in mellow style formed by the combination of guitar and keyboard /piano.

"Stage" , the opening part reminds me to the music of Rush especially "Permanent Wave" album. "Symbiosis" is really a great track with complex opening combining keyboard, guitar and dynamic drumming and it then flows into break with powerful singing. "Special" concludes the album with good ballad, with great acoustic guitar work.

Overall, I consider this as an excellent addition to any prog music collection. The music of Little Atlas can be considered as original one because I can not find any peculiar influence that dominates the album. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

After so many flattering around "Hollow" I had to run the risk and check it by myself and I may tell you (for the case someone is reading it, which I doubt) that all good talks about this album is meritorious; I became greatly entertained. LITTLE ATLAS, a recently shaped prog act, reached their adulthood with a fine and ripe release, configured like a conceptual album, that will satiate a diversity of musical tastes, from those who prefer heavy and powerful tunes up to the ones who favor soft and catchy melodies. In addition, "Hollow" contains a bit of psychedelics and also fusion spices, neo-prog touches and experimental moods, displaying clearly the multiplicity of band's influences.

The album starts great with the roaring 'Hollow' which left no doubt about band members proficiency and song composing knowledge. It's hard, it's tough, and it's involving; there's a flavor of some 70s heavy rocks but this time with a neat and mature 21st Century approach. Next comes 'Silence', initially serene and agreeable, and later explosive with a blast of guitars, keyboards, drumming and sharp vocals. 'Paranoiac' keeps running the engaging atmosphere this time enriched with exquisite noises counterbalanced by fine guitar chords and enchanting tunes provided by the keyboards. With 'Contumacious' things apparently cool down but the air is filled with some exquisite pattern that grabs the hearer attention. 'Preying' could be dubbed as the cheesiest song in the album, although the tenderness is broken by spoken words and tempered moments; all steadily joyous.

'Orderly' opens album's second half not letting the climate fades; the track maintains the captivating nervousness that exhales from the entire work, while 'Hiding' brings a certain romantic substance emphasized by suave vocals with instrumentation flowing in accordance. 'Stage' rocks around the player and if the hearer feels a certain sleeping desire now it's time to revive. Album's peak is attained with 'Symbiosis', probably the best and most progressive track here; there's an uttered symbiosis of Dream Theater, Yes, Deep Purple and the likes, supplied by half-whispered and half-intense vocals and garnished by luxurious keyboards activity. 'Special' closes the album pleasantly; a very harmonic and melodic short song, nevertheless in consonance with the whole heard before.

All in all, a very impressive and remarkable effort, also surprising and uplifting when one looks for what's being done in the new progressive scenery; thus doubtlessly a fine addition to any prog music shelf.

WATCH OUT: THIS IS LESSER AND UNKNOWN PROGROCK!

FIRST REVIEW OF THIS ALBUM

Little Atlas is an USA four piece band (with an additional female singer) that was founded in the Nineties, in 1998 they released their debut CD entitled Neverwordly. This new album is their fourth, released in 2007. One can conclude that Little Atlas took their time to produce this new album and indeed, it has paid off, what a varied and exciting progrock album with strong vocals!

The 10 compositions are song-oriented but due to the frequent shifting moods, breaks and strong soli on several instruments, Little Atlas succeeds to keep my attention during this new album. A very tasteful extra dimension is the use of the vintage keyboards, from choir-Mellotron and Hammond organ to Minimoog synthesizer and Fender Rhodes electric piano. Despite these typically Seventies keyboards, Little Atlas doesn't sound dated. In contrary, they sound fresh and modern, here are a few examples. The long track Silence contains lots of variety, from an intro with soaring keyboards, a slow rhythm with saxophone and a break with choir- Mellotron to compelling with propulsive drums and rhythm-guitar, a mid-tempo with fluent piano runs and a dreamy final part with sensitive electric guitar, emotional vocals and beautul flute. In Paranoiac the atmosphere is often compelling with powerful Hammond waves, sensational Minimoog flights, biting guitar and strong interplay between keyboards and guitar. My highlight is the track Symbiosis featuring lots of shifting moods and dynamics, exciting work on guitar and keyboards and a strong build-up to a compelling, verybombastic grand finale. The final song Special contains a warm sound with piano, acoustic guitar and violin, then a solo on acoustic guitar and in the end we can enjoy a synthesizer solo that delivers a sound that is mighty close to Lucky Man by Keith Emerson.

This is a very good new album by Little Atlas, the band has made a stuning progression, perhaps Hollow will be the breakthrough for these crafted and creative musicians. Highly recommended!

www.progwalhalla.com

— First review of this album —

This is a weak yet promising first release, ranging from unusual to tired same-old music. I'll give an overall review first, then notes on each song individually for anyone who wants that level of detail.

Strengths:

- Variation/experimentation

- Fresh sound

- Unconventional instrument mix

Weaknesses:

- Vocals

- Slips into clichés

- Ineffective juxtaposition

- Mixing

Neutral:

- Naiveté

- Lyrics

Overall Notes: This album strikes me as the most mainstream of mainstream rock that very precise prog and jazz interrupts at regular intervals. The digressions away from the main themes in each song were clearly well-planned and well-executed, but the rest of the music is so basic - and so alike - that those creative experiments don't quite bring this up to the level of a 'good' album.

This band shows right from the first track that they are not afraid to experiment. There are at least 5 different 'styles' that I was able to detect in the first song alone. Unfortunately, the underlying texture is always the same - very simple guitar strumming or picking, almost always simple acoustic style, and often in the same key! The first three songs are all in the same key, the next three are in the same key as each other, and three of the songs on the rest of the album are in the same key as the first three songs were. This in itself wouldn't be a problem if the drums, guitar, and lead vocals weren't playing so similarly throughout the album in general. The experimental parts of the music are not enough to distract attention from this homogeneity, so a lot of the album falls flat. In addition, the drums and lead vocals are often much too high in the mix, drowning out the other instruments. The CD also suffers from transition problems in which songs fade out in odd places, and the next song starts jarringly while the previous song is still quite loud. The saxophone and female backing vocals are often so quiet they can barely be identified.

Add to this the occasional clichés, lyrics that sometimes do not fit the music, the poor mixing, and the often off-pitch lyrics (both Steve and Joanna Katsikas are guilty of this, although her a lot less so), and it looks dire for this album. The good news is, there are several standout songs on this album that do not suffer from these problems: 'Alive,' 'Inside of Me,' 'Seek the Grey,' and, to an extent, 'Little Atlas.' The first track hooks the attention of the listener, but once the entire album has been heard several times it too falls into the 'too similar to the other songs' category. When a style that can be called 'unique' to Little Atlas comes through, it's a fresh, almost naïve sound that I found compelling and promising. The use of saxophone and some unusual keyboards as well as sudden forays into jazz also gives them points from me.

What this all adds up to is that this is not a great album, and I wouldn't even call it a good album, but it also is not a bad album. It's the kind of album that says to me, 'The next one they release has the potential to be fantastic, if they leave their stumbling points behind here.'

Starting off the album with a promising four-minute experiment, 'Living Outside of My Head' secured my interest within the first minute. Little Atlas uses an unusual mix of styles in this song. Starting with conventional guitar picking, the focus quickly moves to the vocals. The lead vocals (male) struck me as somewhat lacking both in tone and pitch, but my interest piqued when a nice female voice showed up in the background. Intrigued at the odd mix, as the two vocalists sang in completely different styles, the song began to weave in elements of '50s-style rockabilly, '60s rock, and a smooth, crooning texture reminiscent of The Rat Pack. A guitar solo starting at about 2:10 brings in both a country and a prog feel at the same instant, and transitions into a short brass-driven jazz section. Amazingly, these elements blend together seamlessly, and transition with no break into the next track.

'Give Myself Away' rests on the textures created in the first song, subtly incorporating a sax playing an underlying melody. While pleasant, this song lacks energy overall. There are a few quick-moving guitar parts that last a few seconds, but the music quickly returns to a gentle, generic light rock sound (which would be more enjoyable if it were more emotionally compelling). The singer again is inconsistent in his pitch, and his gravelly approach to higher pitches in singing begins to bother me. This song also transitions smoothly into the following track.

'Little Atlas' brings the energy level back up, while keeping the overall sound light. Guitars and keyboards overlap nicely with several layers, and the vocals are somewhat better on this track. The song becomes more frenetic as it goes on, right until the end, although it never reaches anything truly frantic. Here, we have the first short silence on the album between tracks.

'Hiding In the Shadows' starts off quietly, then moves into a Nevermore-like melodramatic-sounding chorus (interestingly, Katsikas' vocals sound quite a bit like Warrel Dane from Nevermore on this track). The chorus itself has a very familiar chord progression, beat, and melody that appears in a lot of darker music I've heard, and since this album came out in 1998, I have to say this is a rather cliché piece of music. However, the rest of the song is often interesting, incorporating the sax again with some lovely soft keyboards.

'Harlow's Monkeys,' while fun, also tends to slip into clichés, this time of '60s and '70s rock. I've essentially heard this song, in different forms, many times in a diner near where I live (they're always playing that '60s vibrations station). There is an interesting bridge at around 2:00 in which the song briefly turns a little darker, providing some relief from the otherwise relentless happy-go-lucky mood. This is followed by the most complex guitar solo so far, which fits quite well and brings the song to a more exciting level. Unfortunately, the song ends by returning to the earlier, less interesting theme. The vocals on this track are too nasal for my taste, but they are on pitch. This song is the main example of the 'ineffective juxtaposition' I mentioned earlier. The lyrics seem too unhappy for the extreme major tonality of the music. Sometimes, bands can make this sound even more sad, or sarcastic, but in this case it was either unsuccessful or I missed something in the lyrics.

'Love is All Around' starts out with an angsty mood and a slight wah-wah effect on the guitar. Up until about 1:40, I find this to be the most interesting song so far. The chorus falls a little flat, though, making it at about the same level for me as the first and 3rd songs. At this point on the album I have noticed that every song melds more than just three basic parts (verse, chorus, bridge) together. There are five or six distinct themes in this relatively short song. I'm a little taken aback by the way the song suddenly fades out in the middle of a chorus repetition and blends (not seamlessly) into the beginning of the next song.

'Take the Chance' again reminds me of some '60s mainstream rock, but containing more detail and layers, including another decent guitar solo. I find this song's style also reminds me of 'Can't Stand Losing You' by The Police. The ending is again both abrupt and lacks punch, blending clumsily into 'Alive'.

'Alive' itself is likely the best all-around song on the album. This is the first song in which I really start to hear a unique and cohesive style that is more than several different textures side-by-side. I detect sounds reminiscent of David Bowie, The Police, The Who, and even something in the vocals that reminds me of Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull, all blended together at once rather than touched on separately. This song is touching and beautiful, and has a blissful mood overall.

'Inside of Me' suddenly incorporates a very progressive style of keyboard playing into its verse, which would otherwise be generic upbeat rock. While the chorus is again slightly cliché, it is very effective and blends beautifully into a variation at about 2:00. A rockin' guitar solo follows (I'm seeing a pattern here, are you?). This time the verse is interesting enough that the return to it is eagerly awaited. The off-pitch vocals return in this track, which is a shame because it's one of the most fun songs on the album.

'Seek the Grey' alternately ushers in the darkness and shoves it back. This song might represent the most creative songwriting on the CD. The opposing chord progressions in different sections of the song do an effective job of tugging at a listener's emotions.

'I Might Let You Fall' is a bit of a let-down after the previous two tracks. While proficient as all the tracks have been so far, this just feels like more of the same as 'Take the Chance', 'Harlow's Monkeys' and 'Give Myself Away'. It seems that while each song on this album has a lot of variation with it, many of the songs are unduly similar to each other. The song itself is at least pleasant, even though it doesn't blow me away.

'Picture of Your Soul' suffers from the same problem - it is quite similar to other songs on the album. The same competent musicianship is displayed, and the same general song structure prevails. 'Seek the Grey' or 'Alive' would have been better choices to fill the last spot on the album.

3.5 stars.The record opens with "The Ballad of Eddie Wanderlust" that features some great guitar melodies and vocals."Higher" is another good song with lots of time changes.The guitar playing in the beginning reminds me of ANEKDOTEN,but later really sounds like Gilmour.There is a keyboard solo as well."Weariness Rides" has an ominous intro,more cool guitar melodies.This is a dark,great song with some good vocal harmonies."The Prisoner" contrasts the light and heavy passages,with more amazing keyboard playing."Home" features more splendid guitar solos and riffs.The final song "Mirror of Life" opens with piano and gentle vocals,guitars and drums follow, including some good riffs and a violin solo as well.This is a fun record with animated vocals,a good album.

Wandering over the Little Atlas

This is a typical release which grows with every time you hear. You may discover many references to Symphonic and Art Rock bands like SPOCKS BEARD, KING CRIMSON, IZZ, SALEM HILL or BIG BIG TRAIN. But LITTLE ATLAS never plagiarizes. The complete album is characterized by permanent changes and never ending ideas. Arranged with a lot of care.

Absolutely interesting to hear from the first to the last minute. Nothing lacks - the vocals are excellent - guitar and keyboard are harmonizing - f.e. on Higher. The ballad of Eddie Wanderlust is a good opener. Higher and Weariness rides are my personal highlights.

Highly recommended - get it and hear it for several times - you'll not be disappointed!