Atrina

www.atrinamusic.net

another review of the {beautiful evidence} e.p.-
New Haven Advocate. 9-24-08

Atrina sounds like they mean it, with an earnestness matched by technical expertise and solid songwriting. This record is high-stakes. It bears the superficial markers of earnestness — deep, heavy riffing, a brooding and moody sensibility, haunted-sounding vocals and songs exclusively in minor keys — but it transcends superficiality. Singer Kelly L'Hereux sounds impassioned and entirely straightforward, her voice positioned low enough in the mix to create a compelling push-and-pull between vocals and band.
This dark stuff is thoroughly rocking, spooky, tuneful and direct, a collection of mid-tempo post-punk tunes from the depths that delivers. New Haven rocker boys, take note — L'Hereux's not joking around, and she's helping to trash the local scene's in-joke-isms and to bring us in touch with something more universal in the process.
-Brian LaRue

new haven advocate 2008

For what feels like, in retrospect, a glorious yet brief moment earlier this decade, Atrina was one of the most promising rock bands in town. Powerful and confident, they struck a balance between rock history and hipness, a kind of zeigeist-capturing cool.With a lineup of four vets of the regional rock scene, a muscular and moody sound that could be described as some sort of post-punk art-garage rock, and a handful of cracking songs, the band gigged around New Haven in support of the gritty and thoroughly rocking EP Searching for a Better Way, then…seemed to disappear. Atrina's last gig was at Toad's Place at the end of July 2003. But now, five years later, they're back, playing a show at BAR this Sunday, toting an advance CD-R (the disc is currently being mastered in Chicago) of the new EP, {beautiful evidence}.

The disc, and the band's current incarnation (which includes Vultures/Goose Lane drummer Dave Parmelee, Bloarzeyd/ Humanoid bassist Phil Law, both new Atrina members, and longtime bassist Will Ianuzzi, also of The Vultures), represents "a continuation of the next natural step of the band," singer/guitarist Kelly L'Heureux said in a recent phone conversation.The band's working in, she says, "a similar style, different feeling. Especially when you bring two people in who were audience members before, they absorb it in a new way. Every song is kind of just a mood. Everything that fits that mood is right." In a recent e-mail, L'Heureux explains that while Atrina "kind of fell apart" in 2003, after which she "dropped out of the scene for awhile," she long viewed the band as an unfinished project.