Given enough time, anyone gets those moments where they get incredibly giddy over something. It’s the variety of giddiness where you giggle a bit and vomit in your mouth. Don’t worry- it’s the good kind of vomit- followed by your organs shutting down and an emergency trip to the hospital. You recover and always recall that moment to friends as “Those were some good tunes.”

Abraham is a two piece band from Seattle, WA, consisting of two best friends Ryan and Joel. Their incredibly new album Past the Future has been out since January (2009) but not before being recorded between April and November of 2008. The work they did on the album was just between the two of them overdubbing and tracking different instruments and vocals. It’s so well done that you cannot tell that any of that has taken place unless you knew before hand; kind of as if you read this.

There are a couple of things I really enjoy about this: Vocals and variation. I enjoy how on each song harmonies seem to be an important thing. Vocals can be an odd thing to do on some records if the singers aren’t to cozy to listen to and in those cases there tends to be some effect placed on the vocals (i.e. reverb, delay, cigarettes, etc). I’m not in the least bit describing Joel or Ryan’s singing as undesirable or lacking appeal but rather they can make their voices sound grand without adding an unnatural element to their songs. Also it’s not as if you can’t tell that their voices are each excellent even though they are singing in unison most of the time- because you can still differentiate the individuals.

The variation that I’m referring to is the album’s lack of similarly sounding songs. Yes, they share a particular style but it’s not like a Hives album where most of the songs sound the same (don’t fret, I like the Hives). Each song on the record shows that they. It’s a solid indie rock album with three songs being of the acoustic variety and generally- at least in my perception- acoustic tunes come off as overdone and fairly annoying since they tend to lay within the acoustic motif of being cliched and uneasy to listen to. They don’t do this! Instead it’s more of a folk-rockish feel that is emitted

The entire feel of Past the Future comes off as the type of music I used to listen to on the alternative radiostation I would tune into as a teen-ager. Around that time was when the radio station was on it’s way out but still it was playing some solid indie rock as opposed to bloated and angsty “alternative” rock that it was to later and presently broadcasts. Aside from the bad alternative, the station would broadcast some really good local music and music I would years later come across but then I’d never know the name of. The songs on this album remind me much of that: The good music that you hear but never know who it is of. I would say that “Hotel” best fits one of those songs. I pause the album when I can for about five seconds and then start it to get that same time gap between the DJ fumbling to play the next track.

The album overall is incredibly well done. For an very new local record, it doesn’t have that demo kind of feel to it. Instead the quality and craftsmanship leads me to wonder how the B-sides sound and where they’re going to go with their sound the next time around.

You can get a copy of it from any of their live shows. It’s really good.

Really.

Abraham Myspace

Hotel

Saltwater Crocodile