Critic's evaluation
With just a short while left to stumble and start 2023, Portuguese power trio From Atomic decide to announce Love, Fate, Now & Forever, their second studio album and latest record material. Material succeeds Deliverance and is the second full-length from the Coimbra band.
It is like watching the night landscape becoming daytime from a time lapse, a bridge in the plot of a cinematographic plot. The sound that awakens brings a dense suspense and a latent urban ambience that recalls the streets of great centers of the 70s and 80s. With the consistent highs of Alberto Ferraz's guitar being blown in the wind and Sofia Leonor's booming but concise bass groove giving precision to the rhythmic base, a melancholy soaked in a balanced mixture of post-punk, alternative rock and indie rock is immersed. With a suffering lyrical interpretation and a timbre reminiscent of that fleshy, low and weeping Dolores O'Riordan, Sofia begins to insert an introspective and dramatic plot that gives the picture of Strangers a color palette full of icy and opaque tones. Interesting to note that, in this process, even if simple, Samuel Nejati's drum lines are able to translate the repressed and introverted sense of lyricism of Strangers, a song whose plot involves the spectrum of relationship and an unconscious dispute in knowing which side offers more balance in the harmony of coexistence. In truth, the song is like a process of self-knowledge in which both parties realize their peculiarities and reflect on whether such a relationship is healthy or toxic.
It is like crystals reflecting the clarity of the outside in a dark, inhospitable and uncomfortably humid environment. While the high-pitched, tinkling synthesizer makes this impression in highlighting the new scenario, the slightly harsh linearity of the bass introduces suspenseful notes to the still maturing melody. Of intoxicating torpor, it is interesting to note that, in the structural bowels, there is a motivational notion that offers glimmers of hope in a kind of comfortably depressing limbo. And in that respect it is as if there is a narrative looping that provides the explanation for those initial perceptions of light in darkness. The shuttle of the guitar's booming treble represents, in Quiet, the entrance of light and motivation into the emotion of an individual overwhelmed by hypnotically comforting sadness.
Coming out of the numbing visceral sadness, the slightly rough guitar already presents, in the first melodic silhouettes, curious tones that mix madness and cynicism. Bringing a seventies ambience through the intoxicating synthesizer sonares, the song manages to offer rational traces to its plot through the most palpable textures offered by the beat of the rattle united to the drums' line. Crawl also offers flashes of an uncomfortable and numbing agony, and Toni Fortuna's full-bodied and slightly low-pitched voice is the element that gives harsher textures to the hypnotic melody. This is how Crawl shows itself as the effect of society on the essence of the individual, fostering pride and stripping the being of its purity.
A heated mixture of The Smiths, David Bowie, Billy Idol, and even Sex Pistols can be noticed on New Dawn. With a sensual, radio-flavored 4x4 groove, new wave fuses with alternative rock on Higher Love, a soft, infectious song that departs in an even raw way from the mournful melancholy that had dominated the scope of Love, Fate, Now & Forever up to that point. It is curious that, to prove this kind of lyrical maturity, Higher Love offers a storyline that talks about overcoming and elevating the spirit through access to love. But despite its seemingly religious nature, the song simply inspires self-confidence and self-knowledge in a way that encourages the listener to be who they are without fear of intolerance.
Continuing with the sensual character stipulated in Higher Love, this set presents a greater sense of seduction itself than that presented in the previous track. Bringing in the howling guitar, an ingredient that has already proved standard in both From Atomic's and the album's sound, there is a happy freshness that embraces the seventies melody of I'm In Love With A German Film Star. With Tracy Vandal's velvety falsetto backing vocals providing Sofia with backing and more freedom to perform, the track presents itself as a dialogue about glamour and the denial of fame, but which, in its intimacy, highlights the aspiration for the sense of freedom offered by showbiz.
Suspense and acidity merge in a sci-fi atmosphere provided by the synthesizer's sonar. Curiously, it is as if the listener sees himself in a bubble whose hearing is opaque and the torpor is uncontrollable. These being the sensations and impressions offered by the maturation of the melody, Go is a song whose lyrical interpretation by Sofia already suggests a necessary but unwanted sense of conformation. A song that, for the first time in Love, Fate, Now & Forever, there is the dialogue of love as something more sincere, more original and, if it is possible to say, more biographical. The end of the relationship, the disappointment and pain of a turbulent goodbye can very well be felt by the listener, who sympathizes with the experience lived by the lyrical self.
Crunches introduce the lo-fi. Next to it, acidity presents itself through something still undecipherable, but which already incites suspense. With an embryonic synth-pop, the song matures into a minimalist product whose lyricism sounds like an omnipresent character. It is as if consciousness had voice and posture, for in Control, it is the protagonist acting over the supporting actor, a figure lost in its intensity, its emotional labyrinth, and its uncomfortable lack of self-knowledge. Fickleness appears, here, as the enemy of balance and something detrimental to the antagonist's well-being.
An unexpectedly comfortable and sentimental atmosphere begins to emerge. Perhaps because of the melody or perhaps because of Sofia's interpretation, the fact is that the listener somehow feels touched by the song. Like velvet swaying in the soft waltz of the wind, like a fine drizzle falling on a lawn graced by beams of sunlight, or the simple sight of the sunrise behind the hills, Without You is an undeniably sensorial song that talks about the existence of beauty even when the world seems to be dull. It's about faith, about trust. It is where perseverance speaks with the voice of the heart. At the same time, Without You has a strongly romantic aroma that brings the presence of the other as synonymous with well-being, and even brings the strength of this feeling as something capable of creating an unbreakable emotional synergy.
With a lively and contagious rhythm pulled by an embryonic pop punk structured by guitar and drums and, later, reinforced by the linear precision of the bass, a seventies drama ends up merging new wave and alternative rock also in the melodic recipe. With a more rock n' roll attitude that flirts with that of The Runaways, Walk Back brings a rhythmic rawness while bringing a mixed dialogue of forgiveness, overcoming, desire for change, and vivacity. More directly, the track seems to revisit the sense of intensity and even savagery of not only rock music, but of a restless society that represented the birth of an important pop culture of the 70s and 80s.
Hypnotic, sensual, intoxicating and mind-numbing, the melody of the new set carries the strongest seventies essence of all Love, Fate, Now & Forever. With an embryonic, acid-drenched nightclub ambience, Overload brings the same structure as Higher Love in which Tracy's company gives more foundation and precision to the lyricism with her participation in the backings. Danceable and nauseating, the track relates purely and simply the moment when the individual has the clarity of who he is. It is the instant when the character is aware of his own characteristics, which generates fear and insecurity. After all, the process of self-knowledge is challenging and unpredictable in the emotions it explores.
It is the flickering of leaves from the breeze of the wind. It is the opening of the eyes under a comforting clarity. It is the smell of flowers bathing the environment. With an unsettling comfort, the melody works as the awakening of an enigmatic emotion that makes the tears flow for no apparent reason. Soft and based on an alternative rock in the style of Snow Patrol, I Fall is, like Overload, another important interpretation of From Atomic's process of self-knowledge.
Delicate, sensitive and melodic. Mature, emotional, and raw. What Love, Fate, Now & Forever offers is more than simply a look into the essence of the individual or a reflection on the self. It suggests an unquiet and sometimes uncomfortable walk through self-knowledge from rhythmic experiences that lead the listener into a dialogue with love, pain, anger, desire, and intensity.
Immersed in a seventies ambience, the album ends up selling itself as a product that fuses many sonorities that played a leading role in that era. Alternative rock, synth-pop, post-punk, lo-fi, and even futuristic sci-fi and indie rock themes meet in this melodic miscellany provided by From Atomic.
And in this process, João Rui had a more than necessary role in the fusion of all these rhythmic influences that succeeded in obtaining a raw and original sound that defended the essence of the power trio. Curious to note that, despite being Portuguese, the band brings with it a Nordic rhythmic identity that hovers around countries like Germany and Holland and that, consequently, runs away from Portugal's Euro-Latin blood even by the language chose to give life to the lyrics.
This makes it sound like something common to bands coming from Coimbra. Such contestation is supported by the sound coming from the also power trio The Twist Connection. Similar to From Atomic, the trio also walks through rhythmic sceneries that run away from the Portuguese blood Latin.
Closing the technical scope of Love, Fate, Now & Forever comes the cover art. Signed by Fortuna, it features an aerial image of a road surrounded by temperate rainforest. Under a photo negative effect, it communicates a mixture of fluidity and rigidity, but also linearity and flow. It is a description of life and the emotions it arouses in the individual. As art also brings the idea of cracking and breaking, life is also maturing and overcoming. All very well brought between the 11 chapters of the album.
Released on 11/25/2022 via Lux Records and Before Sunrise Records, Love, Fate, Now & Forever is the dialogue with maturation and self-knowledge. It is a representation of the fickleness of life and its dichotomous emotions. With delightful delicacy over a Nordic harmony, the album suggests a respectful introspection to understand which identity defines the individual, a task that is not always pleasant.
