I had no idea what to expect from Abel as I had never heard of this Nashville rock band, but I'm always interested in new bands. Finding a good new band is always a joy and thankfully this is what I have found with Abel.
The band this month released their ten track album Lesser Man for free via their labels website, comeandlive.com, and who doesn't like free stuff? Putting bands into sound brackets is always difficult because you can never fully justify the band's sound when naming a few bands, but if push came to shove I would... Read More I had no idea what to expect from Abel as I had never heard of this Nashville rock band, but I'm always interested in new bands. Finding a good new band is always a joy and thankfully this is what I have found with Abel.
The band this month released their ten track album Lesser Man for free via their labels website, comeandlive.com, and who doesn't like free stuff? Putting bands into sound brackets is always difficult because you can never fully justify the band's sound when naming a few bands, but if push came to shove I would say Abel sound like a mix of British bands The Zutons (without the saxophone), Bosh, Quench and Scouting For Girls.
Lesser Man was written after a tour with Deas Vail in August 2009, five or six songs were written, yet the majority of the rest of the album was written the following winter once the band had time to refocus their minds.
The album has a modern touch, this comes through in the amazing Saints, with its bass and vocal parts really driving the song. The guitar parts of The Martyr are great at driving the album forward, which seems to be the main focus of this album. Titanic starts off slow and builds into a big indie anthem, and could of easily been one of my standout tracks. Abel have a lot of potential which comes through on this album, they can go from gentle sing along songs, to big power anthems, to in your face dominant moments like they do in the fantastic Come Ye Weary.
Take Me Home has a harsh acoustic resonance, it starts of slow with softly sung words and builds slowly into an indie anthem similar to the track Spies by Coldplay, a great track and one of the strongest off the album. The album ends with a crescendo of noise in Atlantic: The Voice In The Tides which is a bit different and will not be everyones favorite style of music, but for me is something very arty and different.
Frontman and vocalist Kevin Kneifel explains "The album is about forgiveness, That no matter how far you walk away from God, He will always take you back.". This statement is true and explains in abundance what this album is about. The album deals and talks about these issue, with a background of driven indie rock the album is one to be explored.
Review by Jono Davies
LTTM Rating 3.5 out of 5 Stars Standout Tracks Saints
Take Me Home
Atlantic: The Voice In The Tides
