Abe Vigoda: "Dead City/Waste Wilderness"

Abe Vigoda is often described as “tropical” or “calypso punk.” That might be accurate if jagged rock music drowning in reverb alluded to things tropical, or if Michael Vidal and Juan Velazquez’s howling and stabbing guitars actually brought to mind the up-beat, feel-good hits of Harry Belafonte. Instead, the dueling strings in “Dead City/Waste Wilderness” conjure images of two squids interlocked in deep-sea battle. Back on land, the lyrics have a stark urban feel during the cascading chorus when the two guitarists murmur together, “I can run through dead city / I will always fall.” This is a great song, but it’s time to call hallucinatory art-punk hallucinatory art-punk and leave it at that.

:: Download mp3