Atlas Gray, with Tintype photo treatment
Last Saturday evening, December 6th, a couple of bands bestowed brass, blues and soul upon a seated and well contented audience at Wilmington’s World Cafe Live at the Queen. The upstate New York-bred jazz and funk fusion group, The Chronicles took the stage first and Hartford, Connecticut’s soulful Atlas Gray closed the night out.
The Chronicles exhibited relentless energy in every song, shamelessly liberating the horns, bass, keys and guitar to meet all corners and spaces in the room. An excellent precursor to the rest of the night’s festivities: The Chronicles delivered exceptionally well on the intimate stage.
After wrapping it up, the five-piece band, Atlas Gray then opened us with an introduction to their self-titled debut album that was released last Fall 2013. “I’ll Understand,” “Tuscan Sun” and “Before” (the last of the three was just recently made into a music video with The Tintype Recordings) rang out like ballads from a personal journal–deep declarations sprung free for those to take or leave.
One could probably label Atlas Gray as a soft rock and (rightfully so) soul and blues band, but that doesn’t always touch the surface. In “Just Give Me Time” the bottleneck slide used on the electric guitar unearthed a southern country blues twang amid their soft harmonies, and in the older, slower song played, “Your Own Way Out”, the lead vocalist: Alex Godiksen’s rich and full tone resembled something similar to that of Adam Levine. The group has been expanding exponentially over the past several years, and just this past Summer they toured with the Grammy Award winning guitarist, Albert Lee and Denny Laine, an original member of both The Moody Blues and Paul McCartney and Wings.
The last several songs in their set brought forth faster tempos, a profound attention to dynamics and a heavier electric blues deliverance. Promoting empowering blues in the middle of the stage, the two guitarists faced off during “Airwaves” and for the finale finish, the five members performed one of the best songs of the night: “Skyline.” Perhaps the reason it’s so hard to define these gentleman is because there really isn’t a category to identify their unique, novel sound. Therefore, I’d recommend to take a listen yourself or simply catch them when they are on tour next.
– Alexandra Voigt
You can find more music for Atlas Gray here or on Spotify, and if you’d like to check out The Tintype Recordings video, here is “Before.”