I’ll be honest. I’d given up on Slug and Ant long ago. Between Seven’s Travels and You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having, I started to tune them out. Not to sound like one of those guys, I just liked their older shit better. I caught him at The Vic Theater back in ‘06 (full review here and you could tell then that he was in a transition period. The half-MC, half-band frontman layout of the set let you see visibly the dichotomy of his mindset.
With When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold, he’s kinda pulled his head of his own ass and begun to examine the world around him. Instead of digging into his own issues, for this song he’s focusing, as the title implies on a lonely waitress at a dead end diner. The somber loping piano intro gives way to a convincingly funky loop with a light flute riff, nothing ultimately mindblowing, but it settles into a nice groove for the narrative to be wove around. I’m still not sold on how the production feels a little canned, but it’s a solid head nodding beat. The song made it onto a mix I made so that’s gotta stand for something…
Atmosphere - The Waitress
BONUS MP3 - ATMOSPHERE’S ACOUSTIC SET LIVE ON KEXP
This set features 2 tracks from When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold and a new song from their forthcoming EP Sad Clown Bad Spring #12. Recorded live on 5/13/08.
1. Guarantees
2. You
3. Not Another Day
That’s probably my favorite song on the record. It’s definitely a more mature approach to songwriting from that guy, even if it’s a little too o. henry for my tastes. Still, it’s good to see that he’s not just dealing with his own emotional issues around women on a record at- however the hell old he is now.
–d