The Atari Star
Prayer + Pretend (Johann's Face)
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in Amplifier, January-February 2005

It seems like just about all the songs on Prayer + Pretend have some little something that stands out, a musical or lyrical hook of some sort that shows that the Atari Star isn’t spinning its wheels hopelessly, but every one of those moments sounds like it exists entirely in a vacuum, divorced from its surroundings. Modest, mousey and Modest Mousey, the band has come a fair distance since its debut full-length, 2001’s shrp knf cts mtns, but where that album was all about leaving tension hanging in the air, Prayer + Pretend wants to tie the uncoupled ends together, but it never really does. It comes closest on the opening “Always If Only,” which combines the knottiness of The Lonesome Crowded West with drive of Good News For People Who Love Bad News, letting a mildly disquieting guitar figure hang in the air while guitarist Marc Ruvalo sings, “We are on the cusp of a better way.” It would be unfair to ask the Atari Star to remain in that transitional state forever, but the band seems a lot more interesting when it remains ambivalent about where it’s going.

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