Album review: Abby Gogo – s/t
I’ve heard Abby Gogo described as shoegaze, garage and psychedelic but I’m not sure any of those sub-genres on their own accurately describe the band, so best we have a listen to the album and see what comes out…
Of the eight tracks on this self-titled debut (at least I think it’s their debut) album opener ‘Louder Than Dreams’ is the weakest; it’s a fairly run of the mill indie guitar number which failed to inspire me and probably wouldn’t have been my choice as an introductory track. Things continue in the same vein with ‘The Lost Song’ sounding a little Oasis-ish, which would normally be enough to have me running for the hills but I was digging either Bon or Jon’s vocal so decided to give them one last shot with ‘Torpedo’. What a good move that turned out to be! Starting slowly for the first minute or so with just guitar, vocals and the occasional drum beat, the track explodes and proceeds to follows a quiet/loud format which sounds great. From there on in the album maintains the momentum with a great selection of tracks, the highlights being ‘Feelin’ Slow’ with its excellent vocal melody, ‘Guitar #0’ and ‘Sweet Sweet’ which I’ll come back to.
As for genres? Certainly they’re guitar orientated rock but there’s not the wall of distortion you would normally associate with shoegaze. Psychedelic is closer, there’s a stoner quality in the drawn, slouching vocals but the music doesn’t really have that psychedelic vibe. As for garage, well I think the production is a little too polished to really call them a garage band. However in the closing track the band manage to combine all those genres and more as distorted guitars, swirling psychedelic effects, a solid drum beat and those slouching but melodious vocals come together in perfect synergy to create a massive wall of sound, the awesome ‘Sweet Sweet’ which I absolutely love. Not a great start but a perfect ending! 7/10
Mark Cousens
Out 29th November on Phantom Records
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