The Airborne Toxic Event

Airborne Toxic Event is a Los Angeles Indie rock band deriving its bizarre name from ‘White noise’, a Don Delilo novel. Their self-titled debut album has won them quite a following in the Indie and Alternative circles round the world.  The band line-up includes singer and guitarist Mikel Jollett, guitarist/ keyboardist Steven Chen, bassist Noah Harmon, drummer Daren Taylor, and keyboardist/ violist Anna Bulbrook.

The album kicks off impressively with ‘Wishing well’, the tempo remains up through the song as the colorful lyrics drags you through a haze of scenes and emotions and, by the end of it, has you screaming for more. The vague sense of euphoria that it leaves you with, adds to its peculiarity since this is a song about suicide!

The album goes onto take a dip into the inevitable waters of puppy love, longing, heart break and despair with songs like ‘Does this mean we’re moving on”, Something new” and “Gasoline”. It is a veritable mélange here with punkish tunes, dance rock and slow shoe gazing numbers.  The catchy refrain of “Does it mean you’re moving on” will have you singing along and probably catapult it to cult anthem-ic status (if it hasn’t already). “This is nowhere” sounds a bit redundant at first yet the evocative, storytelling lyrics and a catchy tune that slowly grows on you, carries it through.

The high point of the album comes in the form of the epic “Sometime around midnight”, a dark tale of lost love woven around the events of a night. It starts with the melancholic strains of the violin, taken over by the mellow acoustic guitar, picks up tempo with the almost-poetically described unfolding of events (sample this: “And the band plays some song, About forgetting yourself for a while, And the piano’s a melancholy sound check, To her smile”) and climaxes with almost screaming vocals and the pervasive heartbreak. (“You just have to see her; And you know that she’ll break you in two…”) The song was named the top Alternative Song of 2008 by iTunes and has remained their signature tune.

“Something new” is perhaps the song that states the essence of the album most emphatically. “And these songs I sing; With these hopes that I cling to; Desperately wondering; Are we finally getting to something new?” A soothing song made delectable by again, the lyrics! “Missy” seems ‘the story with melody’ that is the style of ATE but digresses to a desperate confession in the last lines (“I should’ve become a better man; I should be more deserving than; The beggar, thief and courtesan I’ve been…”) and it alternates between an almost folksy tunes to pumped-up guitar strumming.

The youth would definitely identify with the references to “wasted hours, wasted time” and the underlying theme of desperation and seeking something you don’t quite know.  Front man Jollet is a published writer and the depressing events in his life led him to turn to cathartic songwriting, which brings us this masterpiece.

This band has no acts, no pretensions and they show how pop culture can turn into Art.

That perhaps is the beauty of Indie rock and the advantage of having a potential bestselling novelist (who has gone through harrowing times) as your front man.

Feature Photo Credit: Aaron Vanimere