Air Traffic – Fractured Life

Eric Saeger

You know what’s funny these days, you take a band like this, strip off one guitar layer and all the hooky stuff and it’s Instant Bowery Ballroom Indie-rock with no chance in hell of ever getting mainstream love. We begin with a run-around-the-city-holding-hands makeout-rock of “Come On,” which is half Libertines and half Rod Stewart, as in nasal limey vocals and big, fat piano-pounding straight out of “Stay With Me.” “Charlotte” is the cross-pollinated result of Franz Ferdinand and Buzzcocks, punkily frenetic but (almost) ready for a shot at any one of the morning “news” shows that’s been retarding the synaptic abilities of US housewives for decades now. As you’d expect, a song titled “Just Abuse Me” is a turn toward pretty gravitas, reminiscent of Coldplay’s “Clocks.” Same for “Shooting Star,” although by that point the vocals have drifted away from purposeful Cure intonation toward a more jokey Dexy’s Midnight Runner sound.