Hometown: New Brunswick, New Jersey
Album: Is Anything Alright, out now via Nefarious Industries
There’s an elemental understanding of what makes heavy punk music tick coursing through Atom Driver’s music. No two songs in Is Anything Alright sound quite the same, save for each carrying the same controlled, chaotic energy—yet everything about this excellent EP screams mastery-level insight into why so many of us have been drawn to punk, hardcore, post-punk, and post-hardcore since we first heard someone screaming over loud power chords. If that makes it sound like Atom Driver are some intellectual brain-trust creating highfalutin music meant to be digested over quill, ink, and a fine brandy. Is Anything Alright hits perfectly at the heart and head, and the fact that the band are comprised of some of New Jersey’s finest punks explains this better than I could.
“We are all part of a mutual admiration society,” vocalist and guitarist Mark Segal shares. “Each member in the group has been a part of something special, if not enviable (Deadguy, Buzzkill, Good Clean Fun, and Boss Jim Gettys). We have all been part of the same New Brunswick scene forever and have been in and out of our respective orbits for years. The uniting force behind it is that we each see opportunities to expand our own, individual creativity through each other. We are all spokes on a similar wheel. Because of this, I feel we are not necessarily relegated to a single genre or distinct song structure. Our hope is that the result is a set of songs that are each distinctly different and loosely tethered in the same relative genre.”
Listen to “High Protocol Party” here:
