Music Review // Atomic Junction "THAT THERE IS AMERICA (Live from The Rock House)"

https://atomicjunction.bandcamp.com/album/that-there-is-america-live-from-the-rock-house

This live album by Atomic Junction was released a little over a year after their full length, "Peacedale", but if you listen to it you'll know that this was recorded prior to the release of that full length.  This is interesting because a lot of the songs on this live album are on "Peacedale" as well, so if you think about it in the way that Atomic Junction would release an album then tour to support it, but a lot of these songs were likely being performed live without the audience really knowing them yet.  Though it came after, this live album could serve as a sort of raw preview for what was to come.

There is something about a live album which is just such a good time.  In the studio, if you do something and you don't like it or it's wrong then you just go back and try again.  Being live just captures that moment in time, with all its flaws and just also makes it feel like what it might be like if you were to experience this band live.  Atomic Junction opened with "Pretty Girls & Pins", which is about churches, bowling alleys and strip clubs.   If you've ever driven around Texas you'll know what this is about, though last time I was in Texas it was also that contrast of a church either being on every corner or an adult video store.

A lot of the rest of these songs are about drinking.  But, to an extent, they are also lessons about why you perhaps shouldn't drink so much.  As they seem to all tell stories, they often times end with the moral being to drink responsibly or not at all because these songs seem to have those consequences from drinking.  This is true in "Now She Is My Ex" especially, though "Gene the Auctioneer" is about a hat.  This song also comes through with the slower acoustics that help Atomic Junction have that sound which is somewhere between country and Americana.  There are keyboards like The Wallflowers and at times you can even hear the harmonica.

When this album comes to an end, there is a song called "3Ws" and those Ws are: Waylon, a good woman and cheap wine.   Between that and the Loretta Lynn mention you can tell there are great country roots here, but I also hear sounds like John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen coming out.   Atomic Junction just feels to me like the type of rock music you would make when you're from America.  It's that definition of the pride and soul of the working class.  It's not about making a country album because you hope you can some day become a pop star.  It's about having a story to tell and knowing that there are others out there like you who will be able to relate with it.