Amalgamating shoegaze, twang, noise, and slowcore tones for a refreshing timbre, Abel's How to Get Away with Nothing spans genre as it interlaces with emotion.
Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, the musician collective explores the human experience through a critical lens, simultaneously questioning, reprehending, and celebrating its elements.
"I wanna / Write more songs about how the grass feels on my bare feet," sings the honest album opener, a collaboration with Columbus's Cornfed, that sways between euphoria and rebellion. Navigating the push and pull of life's simple pleasures and the anxiety-inducing nature of free will, "Grass" captures the rawness of unfiltered, vulnerable thought. Folk-country guitar riffs elevate the soundscape, complementing deep melodies to create an alluring sonic image.
"Daunting" creeps in note by note, building anticipation with every string picked, before exploding with angst. As guitar, bass, and percussion seem to spin among each other, the song marks the truest shoegaze anthem on the album. Stops and starts drive the jam's hard edge, mimicking emotional sways with each droning turn, unexpected chord, and peeking note.
Weeping with nostalgia and delightful dread, "Drip" drags itself to a gut-wrenchingly gorgeous whole. Despite a simple percussive structure, the song moves with unhurried gravity. "I know / It hurts," vocalist Issac Kauffman rings again and again, nailing the accompaniment's unspoken message on the head. While intensity waxes and wanes, anger greets the silver lining through the harmonies that bring the ballad to its end.
"Parasympathetic" seizes the discomfort and dissatisfaction that periodically haunts the human experience. Embodying the juxtaposition of a blue sky and heavy mind, musical resonance argues with itself, pulling for dissonance while leaving room for a peering daydream. A double release, the song appears on Comp for CARE, a collaborative Brooklyn-based album fundraising for victims of Hurricane Helene.
Candlepin Records (Boston, MA), Pleasure Tapes (Portland, OR), and Julia's War Recordings (Philly, PA) take the album to cassette, just weeks after Abel's Southern Spring Tour 2025 with Total Wife. Composed of Isaac Kauffman (guitar, vocals), John Martino (lead guitar, vocals), Noah Fisher (bass), and Ethan Donaldson (drums), Abel finds themselves at home on stage with an encapsulating stage presence.
Kauffman and Martino routinely serve the Columbus scene, providing creative services to numerous local projects. Previously on the scene with Dizzy Spell (2024), Rat Race (2023), and Music to Ground Yourself (2022), Abel's daring transparency in How to Get Away with Nothing is yet another solid feather in their cap.
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