In an age of constant acceleration, Abronia’s newest LP Shapes Unravel offers a space where we can sit back, breathe, and remember what it feels like to listen to music that has been carefully crafted over time.
When everything else—power, play, and music production—escalate quicker than ever; it can feel rare to find something that drifts independently from those tightened rhythms of life. But Shapes Unravel runs on a metronome unique to itself.
From the very beginning, a whining electric guitar casts a resonant echo—like a bird’s caw over a vast desert land—before breaking into percussion that runs, trepidatiously, into the next melody. Singer Keelin Mayers weeps like an angel from above, leaving vocals that dissolve into a blend of embellishing flutes and tangerines. The soundscape, sitting somewhere between psychedelia and spaghetti western, orbits one massive 32-inch drum, the resonant heartbeat of the whole album.
Ultimately, Shapes Unravel feels like a slow-moving ritual, a thought process through miles in the desert sun and acid-tinged landscape.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Abronia’s Eric Crespo. “We were writing stuff for this even before our last album came out... so we’ve been working on this for a long time.”
The group commits to a rather democratic writing process, fusing the thoughts and inputs of every member instead of relying on one lead. For a band of six, this technique surely isn’t easy, but it ensures that every track is paid attention to in full.
“It’s sort of a molding and sculpting of sounds over time,” said Crespo. “It’s kind of a slow process... but I feel it's getting rarer and rarer to find bands that are that collaborative these days.”
But it is this process that gives Abronia’s sound such a strong storytelling element, as several interrupting perspectives contribute to the tale at once. Usually, the group will build off a riff in practice, experimenting with placeholder sounds and different lyrics until the song finally takes shape.
Although, according to Crespo, the song isn’t fully finished until it is played live.
“The live aspect of the music is what is eternal... that’s how it began,” he said. “You can talk about whatever: Spotify, streaming, right? But I mean, all of that is kind of secondary, in my opinion to what music always was, which is being somewhere together, experiencing that sort of ritualistic thing that humans have been doing for thousands of years.”
Evidently, Abronia is huge on touring and playing live to audiences as much as they can. Apart from digital marketing or communities of fans online, Abronia finds true community in the cities they visit and the like-minded people they find in real life.
“It feels more special now to me that, as we slip into authoritarianism or whatever this country is going towards... it feels important to meet with people in person,” said Crespo. “It’s a real experience.”
After the release of Shapes Unravel, the band now looks forward to touring the country this summer. To listen to the newest LP, find them here. You can also watch their latest music video for the LP’s own “Gemini” here.
