Real Estate - Atlas Atlas… To be held up as an example

Review: Real Estate – Atlas

Published on March 12th, 2014 | Jonny Abrams

Not to be confused with Sunny Day Real Estate, these New Jersey chaps have turned in a third album of luscious, dimly lit jangle-pop so sweet of dissonance that you can almost feel it massaging your scalp.

Several rungs above the reams of C86 throwbacks currently doing the rounds, Real Estate meander with a Kurt Vile sort of majesty. “The Bend” is a particular highlight, an exquisite centrepiece illuminated by splendorous major 7th chords, tender tinkles of glockenspiel and even a proggy coda.

Numbers like “Primitive” channel shoegaze in their melodic progressions without stepping out of line, for Atlas feels like an album that doesn’t break out of its comfort zone on the basis that to do so would be to snap you out of yours.

Granted, this renders the album a little predictably paced, but they really do peddle such gorgeous wares that it’s hard to resist its lightly psychedelic charms, not least when the songwriting embarks on sophisticated twists and turns.

An elegant slow-trot through bucolic dreamscapes, Atlas encases you in its blissed-out-yet-melancholy-tinged state of affairs – just don’t expect any pyrotechnics.

Atlas is out now on Domino.

You can buy Atlas on iTunes and on Amazon.

Rocksucker says: Four Quails out of Five!

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About the Author

Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.


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