Atom Tan: “Home” – an alt-rock recording from another dimension
Atom Tan formed as a band in 2013 with members Tommy Taylor (Vocals, guitar), Thomas Paul Hendrix Taylor (Guitars, production) and Leslie Whittaker (Drums) and broke out onto the music scene playing numerous gigs in and around Fife and Dundee (Scotland). Atom Tan set their sights high by playing Fat Sam’s Live and then returning there in to support The Boomtown Rats. The band has just released the single “Home”, taken from their EP entitled “Tourist in America”.
Okay, so I’ve listened to this excellent new single several times now. It marks the point in Atom Tan musical career where they gave in to the idea that Paul Taylor is an amazing studio Svengali that can manipulate sound and the instruments into something that’s both retro and futuristic. But they needn’t worry about creating the illusion of sounding like a real band jamming the crap out their instruments. They already do!
“Home” song is a 4-minute kinetic, anxiety-soaked, psychedelic-rock track that pulsates with traces of slow-burning alt-rock urgency and the vibe of ‘when it happens, let it happen’. There seems to be a million things happening in this song – from the guitar to the drums, lyrics and vocals – yet it never feels overindulgent. It seems to encapsulate more than everything I expected Atom Tan to be able to deliver.
All the studio finesse with reverb, echoes, delays and over-driven guitars are here, and Tommy Taylor’s voice is right in the center and pulled up for us to hear. It’s a clear-eyed approach that makes the track sparkle.
“Home” does something quite fantastical in that it takes the uncool and makes it cool again. Actually Atom Tan takes the uncool and don’t just make it cool, they make it vital in 2017. “Home” is an alt-rock recording from another dimension.
The track has the melody of classic rock, the raw grit of punk, and the edginess of alternative rock, all weaved into a sprawling psychedelic rock container. Quite simply, on “Home”, Atom Tan has the good sense to do what it does best, and that is play no frills rock n’ roll and leave listeners wanting more.
All the most memorable characteristics of a band like Atom Tan are present on the new record: Tommy Taylor’s resonating vocals, the solid drumming of Leslie Whittaker, and Paul Taylor, who trades impeccable, tight guitar licks with the rhythms.
But it’s what the band does with these ingredients that makes this track surpass there genre colleagues. The record is loaded with nifty little touches and accents that give it more color and impact than the usual synthesized alt-rock fare. Atom Tan makes a lot of what’s heard on the radio sound stale by comparison.
Atom Tan are a fantastic band I saw them at Dreadnought Rock Bathgate 2017