LA indie pop quartet and longtime best friends Atta Boy have now released their long-awaited third studio album Crab Park.
Hitting the mark with poignant songwriting and soothing instrumentation, the 10-track LP elegantly captures the continual cycle of change, matched by the pillars that remain vital to stay afloat–friendship, love, home and more–with their most refined work to date.
This is the band’s third studio created album in 10 years since the band’s formation in 2012. The body of work allows the band to thoughtfully reflect on the varied aspects of change and identity–nostalgia, an ever-changing understanding of home, the value of meaningful friendship and the vulnerability that comes with embracing the full, broad spectrum of emotions throughout life’s highs and lows. With imaginative song structures and twirling melodies, Crab Park is a buoyant celebration of the natural cycle of living, dying, dissolving, and reforming, ultimately, perpetually in bloom.
The title track opens the album with a gritty guitar riff as lead singer Eden Brolin’s signature dreamy vocals begin to set in, setting the tone for the nine contemplative songs that follow. Beyond just two people in love, the track embodies the ties that love can have to a specific place, and the distinct comfort that comes with it. Brolin croons, “And I never ever thought it would be me and you at Crab Park/With the bittersweet and final spark of Firework Friday/Can’t explain it if I wanted to…”
The album and track take their name from a waterfront park in East Vancouver where Brolin and her partner bonded for the first time. The track took shape when Brolin considered the ebbs, flows and evolution of her relationship, which eventually became reflective of the larger ideas of the project as a whole.
Brolin explains: “It’s funny that in a heated moment in the past, feelings can be so concentrated, positive or negative or neutral, even, but in the present moment, the beginning until now just looks like a bunch of little stopping points and turns, even though they are what make up the entirety of the foundation that’s been built.”
Crab Park is a pacifying body of work that feels like a candle in a dark room–a quiet guiding light that evokes a particular sense of serenity. Atta Boy’s very own Lewis Pullman (drums) even designed the album artwork – a highlight of the solid, tight-knit environment the four close friends built together.
Pianist Dashel Thompson explains, “The process of recording an album as a band is an extremely vulnerable one. Instead of letting that vulnerability slow us down, we embraced it during the creation of ‘Crab Park.’ I’ve known my bandmates for more than half my life, and I think this is the closest I’ve ever felt to them – in large part because of the open and safe, but intensely intimate environment we built during the making of this album. The result was extremely positive: I think ‘Crab Park’ is our most personal, most mature, and the work I’m most proud of.”
Lead singer Eden Brolin says, “It always feels like a fluke when we go back in to make an album, so appropriately it tends to reflect our experience of the present moment well. From my perspective, the record wades in honest self-reflection, questioning, and acknowledgement of the people, places and memories we have the good fortune of continuously turning to.”
The wistful, compelling third studio album by Atta Boy, Crab Park, is out now along with the title track. Throughout the profound collection, the four-piece reflects on perpetual change, the meaning of home and the importance of friendship, among other things, culminating in a necessary celebration of what it means to be alive.
Featured images by Sarah Midkiff
