Review Summary: I find your lack...
Tainted is no doubt a letter to someone, a close friend, lover, or to anyone willing to listen to the cries of Christian Mundloch. “
What will our friends think of this?” begins the six-song mini album, a sentiment of vulnerability yet also an indicator of an album filled with personal confessions and revealing exclamations. Whoever Christian is writing to, he expresses a range of emotions: from vexation (“
wipe that look off your fucking face”), dejection (“
why are you so scared when I'm confronting?”), to even extreme remorse (“
each scar that you show me just proves I'm insensitive”). Yet, this isn’t your average endeavor into the realm of emo and post-hardcore because in this 2013 release Atalanta showcases about as many genres as they do songs. ‘How Many People Should Be Dissected?’ is the best signal of such a mish-mash of genres as the track transforms from yelled vocals over a simple Indian Summer-esque guitar loop into a back half that wavers between sludge metal, screamo, and even math rock. In addition to the melding of genres, Mundloch employs numerous styles of vocal deliveries, each one matching well with how he is feeling. While there are bitter yells, desperate shouts, and gruffer roars, Christian especially shines when he shrieks at the top of his lungs, exhibiting some of the most impassioned screams I have ever heard.
Other than a live, 2-song sample on their Bandcamp, this is the only effort from the Chicago three-piece. Although they have a couple, hard to find live performances, there is little information and documentation of this band. No matter how badly I want to know who these songs are addressed to and why they were written, the album will probably forever remain a mystery to me. And maybe that’s for the best as this release is already uncomfortably personal, a time capsule of raw emotions and individual contemplations. So, it really is fitting that the album ends with a final letter, one that Christian wrote to himself:
I must learn how to sleep alone at night. I must learn how to be by myself. I must learn to deal with the haunting loneliness that could kill your love. I must conquer and assimilate my biggest enemy; myself.
