Abrams – Blue City
Abrams was established in 2013 in Denver, Colorado. The band’s sound has been described as heavy rock, shoegaze, grunge, and post metal. The latest album Blue City came out May 24th, 2024 on Blues Funeral Recordings. Abrams has been active since releasing their debut EP entitled February in 2014. The band’s full length albums include 2015’s Lust, Love, Loss, 2017’s Morning, 2020’s Modern Ways, and the Small Stone Records release, 2022’s In The Dark. The current lineup of Abrams includes Zachary Amster on guitar/vocals, Ryan DeWitt on drums, Taylor Iversen on bass/vocals, and Graham Zander on guitar. Blue City contains 10 songs and is around 43 minutes long.
“Tomorrow” comes out of the gate with sheer intensity! The production quality from recording expert Kurt Ballou is immense on this album. Every instrument sounds fantastic in the mix. The heavy hitting drum sound and crunchy guitars are immediate on this track. The band fuse together melody and dissonance with hard driving rock. The musicianship is very tight with cerebral rhythms and soaring vocals. “Fire Waltz” has an esoteric guitar structure complimented with hard pounding riffage. Being the first single on Blue City, it’s a great representation of what Abrams has to offer and is a great song. “Etherol” utilizes high register guitar leads with good melody mixed in. It’s a solid song with nice musical dynamics. “Lungfish” is more melodic overall and features some psychedelic elements added in also. The band mixes things up with this song and utilize the melody as a strength with the song crafting. The fifth song “Wasting Time” has a nice catchy chorus and swirling melodies alike. The last couple of Abrams recordings shifted the vocals from more aggressive shouting to harmonic singing. It took me a little bit to get used to this style completely but the execution works extremely well with the music.
Abrams seems to be a band that has a penchant for moving forward, sonically speaking. Whether it’s the hard chord pounding and flaring leads of “Death Om” to the rock catchy swagger of “Turn It Off”, the band converge the vocal melodies into both. Similar to the band Shun(review here), Abrams create a lot of space within their songs and craft beautiful dynamics throughout, like “Narc” and “Crack Aunt.” The title track “Blue City” closes out the record. The song starts with clean guitars and drum rim shots. It then picks up the distortion and flows efficiently into each riff with grace and precision. The lyrical concept of Blue City as quoted states: “Its lyrics describe a metaphorical prison, a cold but familiar place where fear of change and the impossibility of action lead to paradoxical, crushing comfort.” The meaning of this record are right on point to the state of humanity as it exists today, with the mindset a lot of people.
Abrams have created a sonically appealing record with Blue City. I wasn’t too familiar with their back catalog before but have since visited their past records. I can very much appreciate the progression from one to the next and applaud the band for keeping the musical integrity intact, without abandoning the heaviness. The band are very talented and continue to expand on their creativity. I think Blue City is the best Abrams record so far and I look forward to hearing more from them in the future.
https://abramsrock.bandcamp.com/music
