Abe Vigoda - Crush
- Written by Rob Barker
For some bands reinvention can be a difficult thing. While others can drift effortlessly between the musical genres, some groups stumble upon their signature sound from the off, with any hint of change leading to Rain Man style reactions from their fans.
Unfortunately for their new sound, Abe Vigoda fall into this second category. With their previous LP release, Skeletons, the band had seemingly found their niche, producing riotous calypso-punk with an emphasis on high energy and big grins. The direction that their music has taken is now an entirely different affair, taking cues from the current trend of bleak, synth based indie, showing just a hint of their origins.
Although Abe Vigoda have undergone a huge change, it seems as though their former ability to craft a great pop song remains, with the former chaotic looseness of their sound being pushed aside in favour of a far more rigid structure, chaining the band down and bringing every sound to the fore rather than losing them in a blanket of noise.
The key problem with the release is the total lack of fun present. Where before the band had a sound that was tailored for a fun gig, their new sound is more suited to standing swaying in the dark, quite how playing tracks from both albums will work live is anyone’s guess, unless it’s split down the middle with a half-time quick-change from Hawaiian shirts to black polo-necks is on the card.
While the sense of joy may be almost entirely stripped from Crush, the album still has its moments. The album opener, ‘Sequins’, is a primarily downbeat affair, with echoey single string guitar melodies and achingly crooned vocals, that is until the chorus. Whoever it was that decided to mix such a truly depressing sound with chiming steel drums is a genius, creating a downbeat indie-christmas feel which shifts effortlessly into an upbeat electric guitar section that almost makes you forget all of the gloom preceding it.
‘Throwing Shade’ seems to be made for clubs, albeit the kind of clubs that primarily play tracks featuring late 90s dance beats by gloomy Californians, though there’s bound to be a night dedicated to that somewhere.
If you were a fan of Abe Vigoda’s previous sound then let this review be a warning to you; however, if you’re on the lookout for some solidly constructed shoegazing synth-pop then you’ve just found your new favourite band, at least until their next album.