Home Blitz – A.T.K. 7″ – Styrofoam Drone

New Jersey native Daniel DiMaggio just dropped his most recent effort on the Mexican Summer label, adding two more tracks of jangly lo-fi garage rock to his expanding catalog.

At first this release looked like something that wasn’t worth missing – now I don’t exactly feel the same way anymore. Considering this came from Mexican Summer, I’m even surprised I feel this way, but it is what it is. “A.T.K.” is a short and sloppy garage-pop jammer that can’t seem to make up its mind between focus and distraction. Between the lazy guitars that trail off in the end and all the unorganized clutter in the shaky midst, this just seems like a cop out for something that wasn’t entirely ready. DiMaggio shows off some nice guitar work in the nasty little licks scattered throughout the track, not to mention the passion in his lyrics, but with the way the it all wraps up, you may feel like you were cut short.

“Last Cycle” delivers where “A.T.K.” couldn’t, yet it still doesn’t hit much of a mark. If it wasn’t for this track this single would be an unfortunate waste and I rarely feel this way. There’s really nothing to take the song and throw it over the top, sparing the perpetual guitar crunch and the relentless metallic noise that suddenly engulfs the whole second half of the track. While this is a welcomed change at first, you’ll be on the verge of experiencing a headache once it ceases over a minute later. Maybe I’m missing the point somewhere in this 7″, but there’s definitely better Home Blitz records out there.

A.T.K. –