B ottom L ine U p F ront: This is a 4. I know. Another pop punk band crying about relationships. Enough already. But The Ataris do a really good job of mixing things up and Kris Roe has a keen musical sense that makes him smarter than your average pop punker.
Regardless, Kris has stuck through it all, even when he had no money, was living out of his van in California, and everyone had quit the band. Yet, he still kept pressing on. Album Back ground: Anywhere But Here is very traditional punk album in terms of timing as it blows through 20 tracks in a little over 32 minutes.
Most of these pop punk tracks last well under 2 minutes. The Wikipedia entry says Kris did everything but the drums, which was handled by Derrick Plourde, for this album.
It really needs to be pointed out that I am talking about the original release of this album. Kung Fu Records decided to re-release the album in , which happens all the time with early albums when a band gains significant popularity.
They changed the track listing completely, added horrible reverb to every track, and created a wall of sound by destroying the original dynamics. I very much appreciate the more raw sound of the release, and the track order makes more sense to me with the nearly all instrumental track, , being the opener.
