The press kit says that Hollow is "easily the band's most mature and accomplished work to date" ... and that's a perfect summary.  It's was the first reaction, and the impression lasted through numerous end-to-end replays.

The band's prior release Wanderlust was very good, yet every aspect of Hollow is an improvement - the classic keyboard sounds to the increased use of Steve Katsikas's excellent sax work, the intelligent songwriting with tighter arrangements and wonderful melodies, the high standards of production ...  this fourth album is a world class piece that stands shoulder to shoulder with today's leading third wave progressive and art rock practitioners.

The lineup remains unchanged - still two Venezuelans and two Americans, and as she did on Surface Serene, Joanna Katsikas adds rare but rich feminine textures with backing vocals.  Since their last CD Little Atlas has been writing songs as a group, but Katsikas's hand is still firmly on the wheel - and the ten songs are united in that each is a character study conveyed in the first person, many lifted from his professional experiences.  His singing blends into the mix better now and doesn't dominate as it did before, and voice is applied to song with subtlety and sensitivity.

"Silence" is the album's standout piece, and one of the best moments on the CD is its three minute intro. Over its 11 minutes it runs from lullaby-soft  to anguish and anger and back again - and listen for the percussion that shifts from soft-Latin to hard-rocking around 6 minutes in, and heralds a tempo shift to one of the song's big walls of sound. Guitarist Roy Strattman has always featured prominently, and his contributions here are very strong - yet don't dominate. In the intro to "Contumacious" a light bass / percussion provide a staccato bottom end, with Katsikas's vocals floating softly over the top accompanied by the softest strummed guitar. An interesting sound, somewhat linear, but very appealing.  Closing track "Special" is another favorite, soft and particularly melodic, warm, and with a simple piano line, a Latin sounding rhythm, and very appealing guitar work.

Several songs end somewhat abruptly, and interrupt what is otherwise a nice flow - but that's a small quibble.

Little Atlas ain't so little any more - it's all-growed-up now. Strongly recommended.

Little Atlas needed to refocus in order to successfully pull off the 10 ambitious songs on Hollow, each presented as a distinct character study told from a first-person perspective. Lyrically, some songs work better than others, and musically, a mid-tempo tendency remains. But the overall result — enhanced with textures, layers and moods that take their cues from titles like "Silence," "Paranoiac," "Preying," "Hiding" and "Special" — smacks of intelligent creativity that's neither derivative nor tedious. What's more, each of the four musicians has found his strength and expounds on it, particularly vocalist Steve Katsikas and guitarist Roy Strattman.

With great cross-over potential, Little Atlas now stands ready to conquer the big world.