100% HEAVY / 100% Free / 0% Spam

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC ‘Works Of Progress’

Share This:

Across The Atlantic has been a band on everybody’s ‘bands to watch’ list for quite a while now. After exploding onto the Texan underground scene nearly four years ago, the young band then followed it up with a great EP and well-received debut album that saw them invited on to the Vans Warped Tour.

Now the band return with their brand new album – Works Of Progress, an album which might be a hard sell with some metal fans seeing the music ranges from your genuine hardcore sounds at a time through to a pop-punk sound that would be out of place for a band like Fall Out Boy or Good Charlotte.

I have nothing against a band that likes to mix genres, but Works Of Progress really does feel like an album that has been recorded in two halves. The early tracks all contain that pop-punk very heavily. “Playing For Keeps” could actually have been recorded by Good Charlotte while ‘Sundress Funeral’ has some great lyrics –“step off the ledge metaphorically” etc. and comes with a traditional catchy pop-punk chorus. “Cutting Corners” is your stock standard pop-punk style while the lyrics of “Chin Up” really get there point across.

But then the second half of the album almost feels like it is has been put together by an entirely different band.
24 Hours” sees Across The Atlantic really step into their metal sound – it is faster paced and almost feels like an anthem. “Word Of Mouth” and “Self (less)” sees a much more brutal sound from Across The Atlantic. The band intensifies as a whole, but Jay Martinez’s vocals go to a whole new level with growls and screams galore. “Self (less)” is probably the first track on the album that sees the band catch the right mix of hardcore and pop-punk and pull it off.

The band slows down a little again on “Starting Over”, but then the full brutality returns with “Blind Eyes” which ends up being one of the best tracks on the album. Across The Atlantic then close with the acoustic number, “Works Of Progress,” which shows that this is a band with a real talent for writing catchy tracks.

On Works Of Progress Across The Atlantic scream of a band that are still finding their sound. The fact that the album seems to have a pop-punk half and a hardcore half seems to indicate that the band are still trying to find out which sound to go for. Still, the album is a worthy listen and it will be interesting to see which path these guys go down in the future.

Discover more like this on HEAVY:

Our Picks.

Get the HEAVY
Digi-Mags!

Get the HEAVY Digi-Mag in-boxed weekly. 100% HEAVY / 0%SPAM.