Abronia
Shapes Unravel
Some bands make it obvious from the first few notesa single tone, a specific push on the tempo, the way the air moves around the instrumentsand you know it's them. Abronia is one of those bands. From the first thud of their 32-inch bass drum to the coil of pedal steel winding through the haze, the sound of this Portland-based six-piece is unmistakable. Over the past decade, Abronia has been refining their singular blend of widescreen psychedelia, desert noir, Eastern drone, avant-jazz, doom, post-punk, and acid-folkchanneling something that feels at once ritualistic and cinematic. With pedal steel, tenor sax, guitars, bass, commanding vocals, and that ever-present oversized drum (no drum set here), their lineup alone sets them apart. But it's the way these elements coheregraceful, unhinged, unorthodoxthat makes their sound feel like its own weather system. On Shapes Unravel, their fourth studio album, Abronia pushes deeper into both composition and feeling. The band's lineup has shifted slightly since the last one, but the chemistry remains intact. Shaver has put down the sticks and moved to guitar, Danny Metcalfe has stepped in on bass, and Robert Grubaugh (who previously filled in on a European tour with the band) has taken over on the big drum. Eric Crespo's guitar and backing vocals remain a driving force, while Rick Pedrosa continues to carve strange and searing shapes with pedal steel. Keelin Mayer's vocalswhether leaning into viciousness or hypnotic intimacyare a stronger force than ever, while her tenor sax and, on one song, flute (as showcased on "Gemini") threaten to send the whole thing into the stratosphere. The addition of strings and brassviola, cello, violin, and trumpeton tracks like "Mirrored End of Light" and "Gemini" brings an orchestral depth that expands their sonic language without diluting its punch. Sonically, this is Abronia's most ambitious and compositionally daring record to dateimagine Morricone scoring a fever dream for Jodorowsky, or Haight-Ashbury's ghosts colliding with Malaria in a windswept canyon, all filtered through the musical butterfly net approach of Sun City Girls. The album moves with a strange gravitational pull, layering grief, haunted memory, and flashes of transcendence into something emotionally expansive and structurally bold. Moments of crushing weight give way to eerie stillness, held together by an urgency that feels vitalnot calculated. It's a record that doesn't politely wait for your attention; it pulls you into its orbit whether you're ready or not. As high-minded as all this might sound, Abronia is no academic exercise. There are hooks aplenty lurking beneath the surface complexity. Spin "Weapons Against Progress" a few timesno doubt you'll be humming it all day. And if the records draw you in, the live show hits even harder. Whether on stage in Stuttgart, British Columbia, Sabbath's hometown of Birmingham, or somewhere in the Nevada desert, Abronia has become a formidable festival presence. You'll see the old dude bragging about seeing Hawkwind in '72 lined up at the merch table next to the 19-year-old who just started going to showsboth walking away with a t-shirt and a record.