Abe Vigoda - Skeleton [2008]There’s this punk club in downtown LA called The Smell and there must be something fishy in the water there (get it? Fish smell, heh-heh) because four of their mainstay acts – No Age, HEALTH, Mae Shi, and now, Abe Vigoda – have blown up and become mega indie-famous. Meaning, moderately famous. Not sure if this is one of those Manchester in the early 80’s things (unlikely) or Seattle in the early 90’s (also unlikely) but, well, it does at least look like one of those random geographical creative pulses – and those things are pretty cool. Call it the Californian Spring… Of rock. The California rock spring… You get my drift.
Abe Vigoda make tropical punk rock. Weird, right? It reminds me of when Lisa Simpson encountered Yahoo Serious: “I know those words, but that makes no sense”. The tropics are the last place you’d expect to find a punk – it’s too hot for black jeans, and everyone’s getting laid too often to be riled about capitalism, the Man, or the Queen of England. Y’know, punk stuff.
But the concept of tropical punk makes a bit more sense when you hear Abe Vigoda. The dissonance of Skeleton is very No Age, but the sound also embraces the chaotic power of Black Flag and throws a whole lot of schizo Caribbean rhythm into the mix. Abe Vigoda even manage at points to make the guitars sound like steel drums, which is one of the things that almost rockets this album directly into the awesomesphere. If I were forced to give a non-drug related analogy, I’d say Skeleton is the music equivalent of being chased through downtown LA by stoned, knife wielding Rastas. Woops, there’s a drug reference. Sorry.
Abe Vigoda’s sound isn’t easy on the lobes. Skeleton isn’t a dinner party album, unless you’re hosting a dinner party for hipsters. But you get the feeling that Abe Vigoda would fucking shred live, and that (the potential to one day see these guys shred) probably makes this album worth the risk of indictment for music piracy. Plus, when everyone’s talking about the “Cali scene of the late 00’s” you can be all like: “yeah man, I was listening to Abe Vigoda back when No Age were relative unknowns”. That’s called cred. You can’t buy that shit.
Abe Vigoda make tropical punk rock. Weird, right? It reminds me of when Lisa Simpson encountered Yahoo Serious: “I know those words, but that makes no sense”. The tropics are the last place you’d expect to find a punk – it’s too hot for black jeans, and everyone’s getting laid too often to be riled about capitalism, the Man, or the Queen of England. Y’know, punk stuff.
But the concept of tropical punk makes a bit more sense when you hear Abe Vigoda. The dissonance of Skeleton is very No Age, but the sound also embraces the chaotic power of Black Flag and throws a whole lot of schizo Caribbean rhythm into the mix. Abe Vigoda even manage at points to make the guitars sound like steel drums, which is one of the things that almost rockets this album directly into the awesomesphere. If I were forced to give a non-drug related analogy, I’d say Skeleton is the music equivalent of being chased through downtown LA by stoned, knife wielding Rastas. Woops, there’s a drug reference. Sorry.
Abe Vigoda’s sound isn’t easy on the lobes. Skeleton isn’t a dinner party album, unless you’re hosting a dinner party for hipsters. But you get the feeling that Abe Vigoda would fucking shred live, and that (the potential to one day see these guys shred) probably makes this album worth the risk of indictment for music piracy. Plus, when everyone’s talking about the “Cali scene of the late 00’s” you can be all like: “yeah man, I was listening to Abe Vigoda back when No Age were relative unknowns”. That’s called cred. You can’t buy that shit.
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