The artist Abe breaks away from the mundane rhetoric of modern life with a brand new, three-track EP – intensely fusing hard-rock and grunge with a reflective, honest style of songwriting.
The opening and title track kicks things off with a fine presentation of hard-hitting indie-rock riffs and a deeply passionate roar of a leading voice. Whatever you take from these introductory moments though, there’s plenty to come that’s impossible to predict. The song and indeed the project proceeds to explore structural and instrumental pathways and moments that veer off in emotionally new and unconfined directions. This means that you get a fully artistic, expressive experience – lyrics included – on top of something that does just genuinely come at hard-rock with an absolute vengeance.
Butterfly Woman follows the opener and sees a slightly more experimental soundscape accompany that now-familiar vocal. There’s a definite air of character to Abe’s style and the way he crafts his songs. The performances in particular, that vocal tone and the repetition of certain short lines – these are all calling cards that provide the threads throughout the EP. Butterfly Woman is admittedly a little gentler than the first track, leading with an electronic overtone and a more fuzz-soaked, delicate grunge mood.
Keeping that artistic eclecticism alive and well, the final track on the project softly pours into the room with a near-acoustic introduction. Anymore doesn’t hold onto to its intimate, gentle presentation for long, but the moment lays bare a thoughtful and personal side to the artist, and this, subsequently, presents his words and his ideas under a new and more relatable light.
As the track continues, contrast is utilized brilliantly – moments of quiet are categorically juxtaposed by those that later hit with intense impact. Abe’s voice and the lines that resolve during the track’s hook are the driving forces behind this journey. It quickly becomes a striking and anthem-like track, the sort that makes you crave a live show for that raw energy and passion in real-time. Possibly the most memorable song on the record, superb instrumentation – it’s one that impressive and embraces you more and more with each revisit. A great way to finish what is a surprisingly enjoyable, if a little short, collection of original, uninhibited rock tracks.
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