A Love Like Pi – Atlas And The Oyster – Review

Release Date: March 24th, 2009
Record Label: Thriving Records
Genre: Electronic Rock

If you happened to walk past a Hot Topic recently and noticed a CD cover with the world as a pearl inside of an oyster, don’t worry, you aren’t looking at the next gloomy goth-tastic metal band that horrendous store can squirt out. You are instead scoping out the three piece electronica rock band from the banks of Jersey, A Love Like Pi. I can get past the cheesy story surrounding their name, as well as their latest album title “Atlas And The Oyster,” I was just hoping I could wrap my head around their synth influenced rock. The effort was produced by Kenny Gioia (Bayside, Head Automatica, Four Year Strong) and besides H.A. I’m really a fan of his projects.

I always laugh when bands say things about themselves like “[We have] an explosion of energy, craziness and unpredictability,” because chances are they really don’t and instead are most of the time the exact opposite of what is being said. There are exceptions with the majority sometimes and A Love Like Pi is an example of that. Truthfully the band isn’t that ridiculously energetic. They do have an up-beat and driving tempo, but it’s another sort of energy. It’s less a jumpy punk rock band feeling and more so a clockwork Orange type of energy or craziness. Patterns and consistency be damned in this jittery, synth loaded effort. It feels like a more simplistic and soothing Billy Talent with electronica undertones, as well as other bands from the genre such as Trophy Scars, Socratic, and Hometown Anthem.

That’s not a bad label though, I mean I would love a calm Billy Talent and I really enjoy T.S. and Socratic. A Love Like Pi mirror them with off-the-norm guitar riffs, that unmistakable nak for the off-kilter energy I spoke of earlier, and Lief’s vocal flair, and zany effects  just to name a few. A nice surprise besides the catchy tracks such as “Innocent Man” and “The Oyster” was the slower more gracefully progressed tracks like “A Merry Cain” and “My Body” which added a completely new dimension to “Atlas And The Oyster.” It felt like sophistication crept all around this record while mechanically bouncing around with electronic rock.

When you break everything down though that is when you see the intricacies that A Love Like Pi has left behind. Like a well written TV show, you have jokes that appeal to all as well as hidden inside jokes that make the smarter individuals chuckle and “Atlas And The Oyster” is a prime example of that. You can enjoy it for the plain and catchy electronic rock that jitters about, or you can dig deeper through to the layers of sophisticated lyrical density and the intriguing unique elements that is this record. Pi (theoretically) goes on forever, and despite only a few quirky things I can nitpick about, so does my praise of this record. ~Staff

Score: 4.5/5

Track Listing:
1. Atlas
2. Innocent Man
3. Oh, Lolita
4. Young Men
5. Keep My Lovers True
6. The Merry Cain
7. The Oyster
8. All You Do With Guilt, Iscariot
9. Oh, Everything
10. Honesty
11. The Piper
12. My Body