Airborne Toxic Event - All at Once

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Airborne? No.

This overwrought LA five piece displayed an almost comical veneration of Springsteen on their debut album. For their second outing they display an almost comical veneration for another band who themselves nod to The Boss - Arcade Fire. It's there in the subject matter (familial discord, dislocation and tumultuous life changes) and it's certainly there in the massive, stadium-filling velocity of their music. However, unlike Arcade Fire, Airborne Toxic Event lacks any sense of thoughtful restraint. Urgent desperation informs everything they do so that Numb lays on the U2ims, All For a Women features faux poetic lyrics worthy of Chris de Burgh at his most sanctimonious, and The Kids Are Ready to Die threatens to morph into Born to Run when it isn't busy being a song from The Joshua Tree. As sprawling as their hometown, TATE aims for profoundness but hit bombast once again.

Alan Corr

Tracklisting: All at Once, Numb, Changing, All for a Woman, It Doesn't Mean a Thing, The Kids Are Ready to Die, Welcome to Your Wedding Day, Half of Someone Else, Strange girl, All I Ever Wanted, The Graveyard Near The House