Skeleton

I'm reminded of the Minutemen, the Embarrassment, the Fall, Arkansaw Man, the Slits, Firehose, the Nightingales UK, the wild tribes of Borneo -- Abe Vigoda actually can also sound like Vampire Weekend on a heavy dose of STP, feedback and surly attitude. (Hence the awesome live double-bill referenced above.) My guess is that Abe Vigoda has only heard marginally of any of the above bands but came up with this fabulous piece of work completely on their own. I call this kind of thing the future!

Very glad I happened upon this band. It actually came up on my Vivian Girls (a garage-y, girl punk band) Pandora station, luckily. I found the album to be immediately great and I feel rather ecstatic every time I listen to it, which makes me think that I might be over-reacting; I can't say how long that feeling will last--in other words, will this album sound equally good after 100 listens and two years? Don't know. But so far so good.

I love the mid-fi production with the voice buried deep in the mix, making it more of one of many sounds. The lyrics are mostly indecipherable and the singer could be Japanese for all I know (I know he's not). The mix and production is less like '90s low-fi (Guided by Voices; Sentridoh) and more like early REM (Murmur or Reckoning). It sounds like it was recorded in a room with what some would call bad acoustics--resonant to the point of echoing, for example; don't let this scare you: it sounds great! The band sounds unlike any other group I know. At first I thought maybe there was a steel drum in there, but it's really just a unique and trebly guitar chiming out an odd--and sometimes shrill--but fascinating sound. Fans of non-hardcore punk and slightly noisy music take notice.

To contradict the negative review--the band's apparent live energy (unfortunately, I haven't seen them) translates beautifully to their recorded sound. Every song is played with the greatest urgency. And I'm afraid the talent fairy has nothing to do with it; it's about taste, and clearly the negative reviewer doesn't like the cut of the Vigodas' jib. Personally, I don't think there's a bad cut on the album. The band might be vulnerable to charges of repetitiveness with the songs on this album, but again I like their sound so much that I have to gainsay that possibility.

Last, the band's name is brilliant! Who would think that a bunch of young punks from LA would lay down an homage to a 1970s TV star? Who could ever forget a show about an old, irascible, New York Jewish-Italian cop? But perhaps they appreciate AV more from The Godfather than the show Fish (or Barney Miller)?

Just saw these guys last night with Vampire Weekend. The most accurate way to describe this band's music is cacophany, none of the sounds they generate are distinguishable from any other.
While there performance was very earnest, there is a substantial gap between their level of energy and their actual abilities.
The talent fairy has limited resources, and these guys missed their allocation.