The story of The Ataris is a magical one indeed. According to their bio, front man Kris Roe got lucky during a Vandals concert, and the story progresses from there. Five records later, The Ataris can call themselves one of punk-rock’s biggest bands. The fact that they have toured with bands like NOFX, Mxpx and Less Than Jake proves this. After leaving Kung Fu Records, the band signed a contract with Sony Music, taking up the chance to get a big break. So Long, Astoria is the band’s Sony debut and it might just mark their breakthrough in the commercial scene. Like Kris Roe says in the band`s bio, this album is in-your-face rock music, but with a serious twist to it. And he’s absolutely right. The Ataris brings us a CD containing up-tempo and uplifting songs with serious topics describing the everyday life that teens experience in today’s society. For instance, there are songs about a broken heart and family leaving; topics that seem to flow in a natural order. This is all accompanied by a lightly distorted guitar, fast drumming, a grooving bass and of course Kris’ emotional voice.

A personal favorite is "The Saddest Song", which is a nice diverse song that provides a break from the slightly louder tracks on the album. Production-wise So Long, Astoria sounds very nice, but maybe a little bit too smooth at times. You might wonder whether they can perform the tracks live as well as they are recorded. It’ll be tough, since most punk-rock bands tend to be a little bit of a disappointment when performing live. But it is of course a fan’s job to judge whether they can do this or not. I must be honest though. With this album, The Ataris doesn’t really bring anything new to the punk-rock scene. They play great standard rock songs like Blink 182, Finch and Simple Plan do, for example. Nevertheless, the material on this CD is so amazingly catchy that even a metal fan like myself falls for it. Sony can be proud of The Ataris; with this album the band might just get that “big break”.