Abilene
Abilene
Slowdime
From the likes of the late, great Hoover and Regulator Watts to the final (and, sadly, unrecorded) days of the Crownhate Ruin, it seems whatever Alex Dunham touches turns to gold, the man emblematic of the Dischordant dub fixation of the post-punk ’90s, what with his warm-yet-somehow-frigid guitar tone, choked n’ scraped howl, and all. Abilene, Dunham’s latest trio with Lustre King’s Craig Ackerman in tow, represent themselves somberly well on their eponymous debut platter, recalling the similarly restrained rainy-day-rock of Codeined labelmates Victory At Sea, with a scarcely avoidable sense of violence lurking all around the dirges being dug. At six songs in 36 minutes, Abilene floats cold and alone, dark yet inviting, totally trance-inducing but never boring, somehow different and simultaneously the same as Dunham’s previous projects • call it what you will, but the man’s got a (golden) touch; and, above all, the record finely fills in that MIA “Dischord sound” so many (yours truly, included) have grown to love during the past decade. In a word, excellent.
Slowdime, PO Box 414, Arlington, VA 22210; http://www.southern.com
