Stand Atlantic – WAS HERE | Album Review

Four albums deep into their career, Stand Atlantic now stare down the question of who they even are, and where they want to be.

Since arriving on the scene in 2012, Stand Atlantic have remained one of the premier pop-punk outfits of Australia. The four-piece, signed to Hopeless Records, have found themselves with a dedicated cult following, and a reputation for producing genre-pushing pop-punk bangers. Born from a desire to push themselves further into unknown sonic territories, WAS HERE acts as a testament to a band who desire to be creative and innovative. There is a pop-punk core than runs deep throughout much of the record, but how the band choose to decorate it is done in a myriad of different ways. For long-time fans of the band, there is plenty here that they will feel familiar with, now draped with a glittering, compelling new sonic facade, bringing in dance, metalcore, and even moments of lo-fi hip-hop.

However, it is when the band truly do away with any pretences of being a pop-punk band that they strike gold. ‘CRIMINAL’ is an exhilarating collision of dance rhythms and blistering metalcore fury as the band collude with fellow Australian stars, Polaris. ‘GIRL$’ pushes those dance and EDM inspirations even further, culminating in a thunderous empowerment anthem that is ferociously exciting to listen to. Unfortunately, sometimes the record is simply too sonically confusing. The amount of experimentation with their identity that the band engage with enables the album to avoid feeing stagnant, but their reluctance to settle on a cohesive musical style leads to the record feeing a little messy.

Take the run of ‘NOSE BLEED’, ‘LOVE U ANYWAY’, and ‘KISSIN’ KILLER COBRAS’, which evolves through theatrical rock, breezy pop acoustics, and stadium hard rock, without any of the tracks having any consideration with how they connect with the rest of the album. It is all performed well enough, but at the cost of the album feeling like a collection of singles, rather than a fully-fledged piece of art. Furthermore, at fifteen songs long, the album has issues with retaining a consistent level of quality. ‘WARZONE’ is a real low-point for the record, with the unremarkable instrumentals and repetitive lyricism. ‘SEX ON THE BEACH’, on the other hand, tries too hard, with RnB verses and pop-punk choruses that have absolutely no cohesion; it’s a brave attempt at a hedonist anthem, but ultimately ends up as a violently jarring sonic experiment.

As flawed as this record can be, however, the raw potential of Stand Atlantic shines bright through the cracks. Beneath the glittering, polished surface, WAS HERE sees a band testing the very limits of what they are capable of; the growing pains are audible, but when it works, Stand Atlantic produce sonic magic.