  
State of Unrest is thirteen songs of pure unadulterated
punk-rock, plain and simple. Atlas Losing Grip
are the band behind this and are firmly carrying
the torch for this classic punk sound.
Comparisons with Rise Against are inevitable with
them being the leaders of this diminishing scene
and the vocal here owes a lot to Tim McGraw, Atlas
Losing Grip though have a much more infantile
approach to punk than do the old hands. This is
an album of unifying shout-along songs that would
sound great live, “my hearts a time-bomb,
set on self-destruct.”
The Swedish band formed in 2005 and set out to
play straight up ‘skate-punk’, six
years later with a new line-up and new material
Atlas Losing Grip have become more than they could
have imagined. ‘Logic’ opens the album
with the political, religious, and even philosophical
themes that will follow throughout and yet they
aren’t forcing their opinions on you: “It
does not matter if God created man, or if man
himself created God. “God is dead”,
as Nietzsche once said.” Punk doesn’t
have to be political and these boys know how to
open themselves up to a wider audience mixing
their beliefs with some plain-old heart on your
sleeve emotion and if first single ‘Unrest’
is anything to go by then Atlas Losing Grip produce
raw content no matter the subject.
An album like this, with so many sing-along moments,
could easily be lumped in with pop-punk; that’s
just lazy reviewing, if anything this is closer
to melodic hard-core and the reason for this confusion
is the vocal performance of Rodrigo Alfaro. His
voice is strange and yet very normal for punk,
which is a stupid thing to say, but it’s
true. He sounds tired and worn, but yet so young
and alive. His vocals, backed-up by choppy guitars
and incredible drumming, give these songs vigour.
Alfaro spits his words out like they burn his
tongue before nursing them to a smooth half falsetto
finish.
Atlas Losing Grip loves the scene they come from
and it’s clear in numerous songs on the
album with lyrics like: “this is our scene
and our say. We gotta make a stand for it cause
no one else will give a shit” or the chant
of: “we gotta rise on up from the underground”
on ‘Hook, Line and Sinker’ and there
is no doubt that the scene will welcome them eagerly.
Who knows they might even become leaders, they
have the talent enough.
All the components of this album come together
to create a sharp, affecting, anthemic record
that will easily soundtrack many of the lives
it reaches. It goes just as quickly as it came,
but fragments linger festering in the depths of
your brain as they gather meaning.
4.5/5
Review by Lauren Mullineaux
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