LifeMusicMedia Sunday Selection is your weekly view to Australian Artists

With earth shaking guitar riffs that give way to an addictive pop melody saturation, ‘She’s A Dreamer’, the first release from Grand Atlantic’s follow up to their acclaimed debut, marks the end of a productive 2008 and demonstrates a band set to take 2009 by force. The enthralling and mysterious new album, titled ‘How We Survive’, was mixed by Magoo (Midnight Oil, Powderfinger, Regurgitator, An Horse) and was mastered in Nashville and released on Laughing Outlaw Records in June 2009. Their debut EP ‘Smoke & Mirrors’ saw Grand Atlantic soar into Australia’s national consciousness. Released in November ’06, ‘Smoke & Mirrors’ created a storm of approval locally and overseas. The ‘2006 Drum Media Writers Poll’ listed it as one of the top ten EPs Of The Year and the title track’s superb

stop-motion video, which screened nationally via Rage and Channel V, gained the band high rotation at venues all across Australia, NZ and USA on the Nightlife rock channel.

2007 didn’t prove any slower for Grand Atlantic – that year they toured the East Coast of Australia three times, and were picked to perform at the internationally renowned Adelaide Fuse Festival and BigSound conferences. In April they placed 3rd in the ‘Rock Category’ of the 2006 International Songwriting Competition (ISC) with their track ‘Coolite’, while ‘Wonderful Tragedy’ garnered an ISC Honourable Mention in the main ‘Performance’ category; both are tracks from the album. The lads shone above over 15,000 entrants from nearly 90 countries, which merely hints at the breadth found on ‘This Is Grand Atlantic’.

‘This Is Grand Atlantic’ was released in Australia in June 07 through Popboomerang/MGM and throughout the world digitally through IODA. It was heralded as one of that year’s best pop/rock Australian releases. Conjuring up the wide-ranging sonic textures and songwriting smarts of the Beatles and the Beach Boys but wrapping it all in a beautifully-produced modern sound, this was one that any fan of intelligent, melodic pop rock will need to investigate… this is Grand Atlantic.

Whilst 2008 was a purposefully quiet period on the domestic gig front for the band, having been bunkered down in the recording studio crafting their sophomore album ‘How We Survive’, internationally Grand Atlantic have continued to grow. Sustained independent and underground support in Europe and the USA has seen them featured on numerous blogs and podcasts, securing European promotional representation and consistent exposure to markets around the world. Grand Atlantic makes records the unfashionable way – carefully, thoughtfully, with no regard for fashion, demographics or marketing. They’re about integrity in a world overrun by disposable corporate clones. They’re about real songwriting and playing in spite of the one-dimensional kiddie-fodder that dominates the charts. 2009 will be the year of Grand Atlantic, with ‘How We Survive’ to be launched on to the world stage.