Abe Vigoda

MYSPACE  ::  FACEBOOK  ::  POST PRESENT MEDIUM

If you want to know how kids can get so fucked in the head growing up in southern california, you gotta know about Abe Vigoda. Chino is the home of this sort of No Wavey sort of Pop oriented sort of twisted punked 4 piece. You can see it in the way they pound the living shit out of the instruments they play, and you can see it in the way they talk about things they are interested in, these kids are fucked, but in a good way. Fucked in the way that they can make a good record and play really good shows above all odds, like having terminal cancer and mental illness. Juan will kiss you if you ask and they are HUGE in England.

Those who clocked Abe Vigoda’s transition from 2006’s debut Kid City to 2008’s startling tropical-punk Skeleton should know the LA quartet aren’t ones for repeating themselves. To Skeleton’s hot-hot-hot template, they now add glassy shards of ‘cold wave’ pop, with synthesisers, sequencers and altogether broodier beats. Scorching temperatures, icy currents... CRUSH is a thermal column of vertiginous brilliance!But let’s not get bogged down in categories. Just as Skeleton was difficult to define, Crushis a similar collision of sound, another helter-skelter joy ride through four boys’ private party. Even so, there was a thought process behind this new surge. In 2009 Dane Chadwick replaced drummer Reggie Guerro, introducing a new style of regimented beats as well as other musical ideas to the table. “More than just rhythmically, Dane helped with melodies and most of the electronics on the album,” says vocalist Michael Vidal. Meanwhile, guitarist Juan Velasquez had already posted the fact he dug UK dreampop and goth. To which Vidal adds, “My favorite kind of music is instantly nostalgic and emotionally confusing. And reverb has always been a big part of our sound. We were definitely inspired by cold wave and minimal wave stuff, as well as Arthur Russell.”From the pell-mell pop of "Sequins" to the New Romantic crush of "Throwing Shade" and the title track’s MBV scree, Crush feels a long way from the Smell Club band scene of AV’s roots. For one, they’ve added so much emotion to their sonics, to which the album title bears testament - crush meaning both the infatuation kind of love and the act of destroying something..