Atom and His Package
Attention! Blah Blah Blah. (Hopeless)
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in Space City Rock, Summer 2004

Atom and His Package are pretty much the musical equivalent of an Onion article: you can glance at song titles like “The Palestinians Are Not The Same Thing As The Rebel Alliance, Jackass.” and “Dear Atom, You Do Not Want Children. Love, Atom” and glean about 90% of what the song has to offer. On Attention! Blah Blah Blah., one-man band Atom Goren hits the occasional bullseye, like when he rather impressively manages to turn the title “I’m Downright Amazed At What I Can Destroy With Just A Hammer” into a credible chorus. For the most part, though, he’s tapped out at a single idea per song and then simply fills in the blanks for the next two minutes or so. It’s all intellect and no emotion (which is probably for the best in the case of “Does Anybody Else In This Room Want To Marry His Or Her Own Grandmother?”), so once the joke’s gone, it’s gone, baby, and all that’s left is some modestly tuneful synth pop with heavy metal guitars and the image of a brainily logorrheic guy sticking Scotch-tape moustaches on his TV to make himself smile. I’ll bet that gets old quickly, too.

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