Abronia "Shapes Unravel" LP

• LP from Portland six-piece Abronia, released on vinyl through Feeding Tube and Cardinal Fuzz channels.
• Features vocals, tenor sax, flute, pedal steel, percussion, bass, guitar, strings, and trumpet across a cinematic psych-folk frame.
  
• For fans of: Wovenhand, Califone, Earth, Hexvessel, desert drone, and slow-burning psychedelic folk.

Shapes Unravel sounds huge without losing its handmade edge. Abronia build songs from atmosphere, ritual percussion, and open-road tension, then let the melodies rise out of the dust.

Some bands make it obvious from the first few notes -- a single tone, a specific push on the tempo, the way the air moves around the instruments -- and 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-folk -- channeling something that feels at once ritualistic and cinematic. Now, the band presents their fourth studio album, Shapes Unravel. Sonically, this is Abronia's most ambitious and compositionally daring record to date -- 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 vital, not 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. Listeners' first glimpse into Shapes Unravel is the single "New Imposition." The track opens with echoing guitar plucking and eerie pedal steel and unfolds quickly into a cinematic score, transporting you instantly into the world of Abronia. When asked about the song, singer/saxophone player Keelin Mayer says, "Going into a Fred Meyer (Pacific Northwest one stop shopping) during the pandemic -- walking around the store while your drug addicted boyfriend shove racks of ribs, ice cream and deodorant down his pants, while people are shooting up in the bathroom. We think someone steals his iPhone at the self-checkout, but it turns up shoved between two bags of chips. You only realize your boyfriend was shoplifting when he pulls the stolen things out of his pants in the car. The guilt and shame you feel as you watch so many people succumb to addiction. That Fred Meyer location is now closed because it couldn't sustain the wave of crime. Watching the fruits of unbridled capitalism and the greed of the ruling elite bloom into full technicolor. Try to run away before the wave gets you too."