For those with a keen eye towards the golden coasts of Australia, it’s been difficult to avoid the steady rise of ATLVS over recent months. With crushing singles “Nazareth” and “Kodokushi” laying the ground work, track “Comethazine” saw the quintet pick up much-deserved attention. “Off the back off the last single, Comethazine, we’re a lot more confident releasing music now. We’re going to keep putting out music no matter what the response is to it, the response to Comethazine was so wild for what we anticipated,” discusses bassist Matt Borthwick. Riding on their newfound momentum, ATLVS unveil the fourth single off their upcoming EP: “Broken Bonds“.
“Broken Bonds” delivers a meaningful message that explores the realities of toxic environments, lyrics focused on growing up in an unhealthy home and recovering from the trauma. “Abuse doesn’t always have to be followed. The scars can heal generation to generation. Things can get better and a person doesn’t have to be shaped by the environment they were raised in.” “Broken Bonds” was originally written by previous vocalist Matt James, who pushed ATLVS to release it, even without him being the one to tell his personal story.
With now four singles under their belt in their new era, questions emerge as to what else ATLVS have in stock for 2022. Quietly confirmed earlier this year, ATLVS will be dropping EP The Wound, The Blade single by single, with a total of six tracks. “Singles just gain so much more traction even if released without a music video than just being a whole bunch of songs and hoping that everyone has the attention span to listen through them all,” the band explained. “By the time we’re falling out of the eyes of everyone, we’re dumping something else on them to respark it and remind everyone we’re doing stuff.”
The pandemic has accelerated a new model of releasing material, with a track-by-track release favouring visibility on streaming services, YouTube, and in maintaining a continued online presence. This strategy is paying dividends for ATLVS, their previous singles having received attention from Silent Planet’s Garrett Russell and Emmure’s Josh Travis. “Knowing that someone from Silent Planet and Emmure have heard our music and rate our music is nuts. Even now we still get notifications on Instagram of Garrett sharing our stuff on his story“. With the likes of Rachelle Reacts labelling “Comethazine” as “one of the best songs I’ve heard this year”, each new positive response online sparks a domino effect of new fans discovering ATLVS’ brutal sound.
Their previous EP saw features from Scotland’s Jamie Mclees and Ocean Sleeper’s Ionei Heckenberg, but The Wound, The Blade will see ATLVS departure from features. For now. “We wanted some but we just weren’t organised enough. In the future we will definitely be looking at some,” explains guitarist Nick Fitzgerald. However, ATLVS don’t see this as a negative thing for the record. “It’s sick to have features but it’s nice to put out a release that doesn’t feel like we’re standing on the backs of people, this is entirely us.” There is also a slight tease towards “Broken Bonds” potentially not being the most melodic song on the EP: “In the future there might be something more left of field than that you’ve heard so far.“
The recent charge has seen Scottie Simpson work behind the scenes on producing the record, and ATLVS offer up nothing but high praise for the Alpha Wolf guitarist. “So easy, dude’s super chill but also very keen to push where he feels things need to change. He wasn’t like, ‘these songs are shit, we need to change this this this.’ Instead he took the approach of “let’s try this” and we tried it and it was awesome.” With new vocalist Nathan Coff completing vocal tracking within a day, “a brand new vocalist in a brand new band, that says something for who he’s working with.”
With ATLVS seemingly onto bigger and better things, both within Australia and internationally, it’s difficult not see the potential for where the unit could go, and the band were clear in their goals. “Play a show outside of Australia and release a full-length album,” outlines Fitz, whilst remaining focused on the EP ahead in the short term. With touring overseas being a goal for Mitch too, the world could soon become their oyster. “UK or US would be ridiculous, playing overseas at all would be wild. I want to play as in many places as possible. Give me cool shows and cool places.” There is no doubt that there are fans within the US and UK who will be itching to throw hands and scream lyrics to these most recent singles, and all now it takes is for a band to take the plunge and bring ATLVS on a tour.
“Broken Bonds” is set to hopefully follow in the footsteps of “Comethazine” and bring yet further acclaim to a band who are confident of their identity and sound. “I think we’ve now narrowed that down into a specific sound. There’s still room for chopping and changing but the self discovery phase is over and we’re ready to write what we want to be writing.” With a new evolution of their the nu-metalcore sound, a strong wind in their sails, and ambitious plans for the future, it really is only a matter of time before ATLVS become a staple of the Australian core scene and beyond.