Atlas Engine - "When The Compass Resets, There Can Be No Regrets"
Words by Zach Romano
Look At My Records is thrilled to present When the Compass Resets There Can Be No Regrets (Favorite Friend Records), the long-awaited debut LP from Brooklyn’s Atlas Engine. Most of the songs on the album won’t be new to you if you’ve been following the band: nine of the twelve tracks here have already been released in EPs or singles over the last couple of years. However, when the puzzle pieces of the previous releases are put together and the spaces are filled in by the new tracks (including an opening overture and a doozy of a closing cut), a gorgeous, thematically and aurally coherent album that’s greater than the sum of its parts comes into focus. Break out your best headphones and carve out a full, undistracted forty-seven minutes for this one.
When the Compass Resets… is ostensibly an album about Atlas Engine frontman and songwriter Nick LaFalce’s multiyear struggle with undiagnosed Lyme disease. LaFalce spent ten years in a cycle of ill health, stumped doctors, and confusion. This isn’t exactly an album of songs about Lyme, though: LaFalce and co. take the themes of repeating cycles and inability to reach exit velocity from our personal orbits no matter how much steam we build up and explore them across contexts and scales. “Secrets”, a duet between LaFalce and Meredith Lampe (Work Wife, Colatura) details the vulnerable yet still guarded incipient stage of a relationship and how some of the moments and revelations shared can feel like the beginnings of other relationships – but of course you can’t say that. On the other end of the spectrum is “Not Enough”, in which LaFalce grapples with the continued spate of school shootings and how empathy does not translate to change: “Broken records playing in our hearts,” he sings, “They’re not enough.”
All of the tracks here continue the band’s run of complex and delicate yet hooky and engaging compositions. In an Atlas Engine song, each piece is carefully placed and doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing. Nowhere is this more evident than on opener “(Compass: Overture)”, an energetic track with a linear song structure that manages to subtly incorporate themes from each of the other tracks on the album. Highlight “Modern Mind” has a sci-fi movie soundtrack feel that at times recalls Rush’s underrated classic Grace Under Pressure. Over its five minutes, the track builds to a huge guitar solo over a locked-in rhythm section. There are indeed more guitar heroics here than on the band’s previous releases, including on “(All I Ever Do is Dream)”, which was originally concepted as a short interstitial but eventually morphed into a Tame Impala-esque two-minute slice of sun.
Everything comes together on “I Never Get as Far as I Run,” which closes the album and serves as perhaps the most direct articulation of its themes, both lyrically and sonically. “Moving forward, but I’ve been here before,” sings LaFalce accompanied by Katie Glasgow (Sally Hatchet), “Again and again.” However, there’s hope and resilience to be found: “I’ll try again, and then I’ll rise again….Have to try again.”
Stream the record in its entirety below.
You can catch Atlas Engine playing twice this week: first tomorrow (3/2) as part of a stacked bill at Berlin Under A and on Saturday (3/4) on the roof of Our Wicked Lady. When the Compass Resets There Can Be No Regrets can be streamed here and purchase via Bandcamp.
