Portland heavy Americana psych rockers Abronia set out this weekend in support of their new album, Shapes Unravel (review here), which is out on Cardinal Fuzz/Feeding Tube Records, playing in Oregon and Washington ahead of more shows next month in Oregon and California. It’s not a weeks-long tour, but they’re hitting their spots nonetheless, and the record makes a worthy cause for the going. No idea if more dates will follow, if anything’s planned for the East Coast or the Midwest, or what. All I know is these shows came through the PR wire and it was an excuse to put the record on while I was writing about them, and I was happy for that.

If you’ve not yet heard it, you’ll find it streaming at the bottom of this post and can discover for yourself why I’d be glad for that excuse:

Abronia Announce West Coast Tour

Shapes Unravel LP Out Now via Cardinal Fuzz & Feeding Tube Records

Portland based band Abronia have announced a February/March 2026 West Coast tour. The run includes dates at Portland, OR’s Mississippi Studios (2/26), Cottage Grove, OR’s Axe & Fiddle (3/24), Oakland, CA’s Thee Stork Club (3/26), Chico, CA’s Naked Lounge (3/27), and more. Full routing and select ticket links can be found below. The tour is in support of their recently released album, Shapes Unravel.

Abronia Live
2/26 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
2/27 – Seattle, WA – Add-A-Ball
2/28 – Bellingham, WA – Makeshift
3/7 – Eugene, OR – Art House
3/24 – Cottage Grove, OR – Axe & Fiddle w/ McKenzie & the Last Responders
3/25 – Hayfork, CA – Northern Delights w/ The Glow Twins
3/26 – Oakland, CA – Thee Stork Club
3/27 – Chico, CA – Naked Lounge
3/28 – Arcata, CA – The Miniplex

Shapes Unravel 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.

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. 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.

Shapes Unravel is out now via Cardinal Fuzz & Feeding Tube Records.

Abronia is –
Keelin Mayer: Vocals, Tenor Saxophone, Flute
Rick Pedrosa: Pedal Steel, Percussion
Robert Grubaugh: Big Drum, Percussion, Melodica
Danny Metcalfe: Bass
James Shaver: Guitar
Eric Crespo: Guitar, Backing Vocals

https://abronia.bandcamp.com/
http://instagram.com/abroniaband
http://facebook.com/abroniapdx

cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/
https://cful.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/cardinalfuzz/
https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/

http://feedingtuberecords.com/
https://feedingtuberecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/feedingtuberecords_rozztoxart/
https://www.facebook.com/FeedingtubeRecords/

Abronia, Shapes Unravel (2026)

Resonance and texture are not new elements in the work of Oregonian heavy psychedelic Americana explorers Abronia. Indeed, one could argue their principal stylistic declarations were made nine years ago on their first album, Obsidian Visions / Shadowed Lands (review here), at least as regards arrangements centered around the ‘big drum’ rather than a traditional kit — and yes, it is a large bass drum being hit, complemented by cymbals, shakers and various other now-you-have-to-be-creative-type percussion — with pedal steel guitar used for place-setting (‘vibes’ they call it now; everything is vibes) and lysergic flourish. And I’ll point out that I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Abronia showed up nearly a decade ago with a clear idea of what they wanted to do, and as they’ve refined their approach, their music to-date has painted pictures accordingly. Never with so purposeful a hand and never quite so vividly as on Shapes Unravel, their fourth full-length.

The guitars of James Shaver (who was originally on the drum) and Eric Crespo (also backing vocals) are recognizable in style and tone and breath, and Keelin Mayer remains of marked vocal presence and command, be it the primal scream therapy taking place at the end of opening track “New Imposition,” which holds a grandeur that makes it feel broader than its four-and-a-half-minute runtime, or the confident staccato delivery alongside Mayer‘s own flute in “Gemini” regrounding with a hook after the expansive “Walker’s Dead Birds,” which isn’t to mention the tenor sax in the latter track with which she seems to be in a nonlingual conversation. Rick Pedrosa‘s pedal steel can add twang or mood, depending on the need, and Danny Metcalfe‘s bass is given all the more room for the compared-to-a-full-kit stripped-down nature of the drum, handled by Robert Grubaugh. But as second cut “Mirrored Ends of Light” eschews the rawer payoff of “New Imposition” and moves from its earlier ’60s-ish shuffle in favor of a more poised-feeling, Morricone-cinematic crescendo (not their first time in the Spaghetti West), Shaver‘s arrangements of viola and violin (played by Miles Wierer-Huling) and trumpets (played/recorded by Cory Gray) bring the procession to another level. It is not bombastically heavy and it doesn’t need to be. It carries a sunbeaten weight of centuries in its atmosphere.

In addition to this, there is a maturity in the songwriting across Shapes Unravel that gives a greater sense of flow between tracks even as each one adds something different to that mix. At seven songs/35 minutes, it’s not by any means an unmanageable listen, but in part not being overloaded in terms of runtime is emblematic of how Shapes Unravel makes its every decision count. The way that crescendo in “Mirrored Ends of Light” builds up around Mayer‘s vocalizing. The way “Weapons Against Progress” conveys a forward movement in its rhythm and puts a bluesier twist on the guitar, or the matched step of the lyric “I’m all over your cold shoulder” with the light-footed instrumental march of “Petals and Sand.” Shapes Unravel makes highlights of its details, and it’s not about one instrument or the other being pushed higher in the mix to get a showcase, but instead about where a song is going and what most serves it.

“Walker’s Dead Birds” is the longest inclusion at 6:35 and starts with a prairie raga pedal-steel daybreak, shifting smoothly into its verse before introducing the crashes that hint at a volume surge to come. The verses are declarative, the execution patient and confident because they know where they’re going and why, even as the second half lets loose into a drift of intertwining layers of guitar, saxophone and a mounting swell of distortion, but when the peak has been reached, it’s the central, quiet verse progression that remains, and they push through a return from whence they came before the song is done, tying it together fluidly and leaving little question as to how “Walker’s Dead Birds” wound up as the centerpiece that it is.

Abronia‘s last outing was the 2023 live-in-a-cabin release The High Desert Sessions (review here), which came just a year out from 2022’s third album, Map of Dawn (review here). There have been some lineup changes around Crespo, Mayer, Pedrosa and Shaver, as Grubaugh and Metcalfe are making their respective first appearances with the band, but the freshness of the rhythm section certainly doesn’t hurt, as both the steady roll of “Weapons Against Progress” and the subtle motion of the penultimate “Petals and Sand” — which feels almost minimalist at its outset but grows organically to a wash by its finish without losing control of the melody so central to its effect on the listener. Preceded by a return of strings on “Gemini” (this time played by Kate Kilbourne), ” along with the already-noted flute and I’ll just call it grace, “Petals and Sand” is melancholic triumph of a manner that emphasizes the care put into the craft across the board, and closer “Asleep in the Porcelain House” offers a tasteful linear build that, to the last, brings to light just how many routes Abronia have to get their material where it’s going, seeming to push beyond “Petals and Sand” to a next stage, Mayer‘s screams recalling “New Imposition” or the ending of “Walker’s Dead Birds,” other moments where the restraint gives way.

Shapes Unravel was recorded by Evan Mersky, with additional recording by Crespo, TJ Thompson and Cory Gray, and mixed by Larry Crane. And even before you get to the strings or the trumpets or Mayer‘s sax or Grubaugh‘s melodica, there’s a lot put into even its most subdued-feeling moments. Ultimately, though, the balance Abronia strike in these songs demonstrates not only complexity, but the reasoning behind it, and whether one wants to sit and peruse the ambient details of “Weapons Against Progress” or let the whole album play out as one longer, cohesive mass, it works, and the title repetitions in “Gemini” are as much a part of why as the illustrated scope of “Mirrored Ends of Light.” It is an accomplishment that could only have come by the manner it did — something a band pursued as they pushed themselves creatively on ground new and familiar — and so feels all the more masterful.

Abronia, “New Imposition” official video

Abronia, Shapes Unravel (2026)

Abronia on Bandcamp

Abronia on Instagram

Abronia on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz store

Cardinal Fuzz on Bandcamp

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Cardinal Fuzz on Facebook

Feeding Tube Records website

Feeding Tube Records on Bandcamp

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Big-drummed heavy-psych Americana rockers Abronia are coming back with their fourth album, Shapes Unravel, on Feb. 20, 2026. Set to release on Cardinal Fuzz in Europe and Feeding Tube Records in the States, it’s the Portland, Oregon, six-piece’s follow-up to 2022’s Map of Dawn (review here) and 2023’s The High Desert Sessions (review here), and the opening track, “New Imposition,” is streaming now to mark the launch of preorders.

I like this band. I’ve liked them since their first record, and that was only eight years ago so I’m not bragging or anything. But they’ve been consistent in some ways — Keelin Mayer remains a core presence on vocals, and the arrangements surrounding with pedal steel, tenor sax and other-than-big-drum percussion have always been there — and as the PR wire posits, are plenty recognizable in terms of their sound. You know them when you hear them, but as “New Imposition” reminds, they’re always up to something a little different than they were last time out.

The track gets a little wild, but well it should for being at the start of the record. I haven’t heard the full-thing yet, but I’m willing to speculate it doesn’t get any less outbound from there. So much the better. I look forward to finding out:

Abronia Announces New LP, Shares “New Imposition” Single + Video

PRE-SAVE: Abronia – Shapes Unravel
Pre-Save: https://show.co/jf49ZZx
Pre-Order (US): https://feedingtuberecords.com/releases/shapes-unravel/
Pre-Order (UK): https://cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/product/abronia-shapes-unravel

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.

Today, the band is announcing 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.

Our 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.”

Alongside the release of “New Imposition,” the band is sharing a music video.

“New Imposition” is out today on all DSPs. Shapes Unravel is due for release on February 20th, 2026.

Abronia Live
2/26 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios w/ Jackie-O Motherfucker
2/27 – Seattle, WA @ Add-a-Ball w/ Jackie-O Motherfucker, Von Wildenhaus
2/28 – Bellingham, WA @ Makeshift w/ Jackie-O Motherfucker, The Sheen

Shapes Unravel – Tracklisting:
1. New Imposition
2. Mirrored Ends of Light
3. Weapons Against Progress
4. Walker’s Dead Birds
5. Gemini
6. Petals and Sand
7. Asleep in the Porcelain House

On Shapes Unravel, their fourth studio album, Abronia pushes deeper into both composition and feeling. The band’s lineup has shifted slightly since the last one, but the chemistry remains intact. Shaver has put down the sticks and moved to guitar, Danny Metcalfe has stepped in on bass, and Robert Grubaugh (who previously filled in on a European tour with the band) has taken over on the big drum. Eric Crespo’s guitar and backing vocals remain a driving force, while Rick Pedrosa continues to carve strange and searing shapes with pedal steel. Keelin Mayer’s vocals—whether leaning into viciousness or hypnotic intimacy—are a stronger force than ever, while her tenor sax and, on one song, flute (as showcased on “Gemini”) threaten to send the whole thing into the stratosphere. The addition of strings and brass brings an orchestral depth that expands their sonic language without diluting its punch.

Like their previous three records, this one was tracked at Portland’s legendary Echo Echo studio (formerly Type Foundry). And like their previous studio album, Map of Dawn, it was mixed by Tape Op founder Larry Crane, a longtime ally of the band’s sonic excavations. The band’s commitment to capturing the unfiltered, spontaneous magic of being in the room together remains a cornerstone of their sound, creating a record that is at once chaotic, controlled, and unapologetically alive.

Abronia is –
Keelin Mayer: Vocals, Tenor Saxophone, Flute
Rick Pedrosa: Pedal Steel, Percussion
Robert Grubaugh: Big Drum, Percussion, Melodica
Danny Metcalfe: Bass
James Shaver: Guitar
Eric Crespo: Guitar, Backing Vocals

https://abronia.bandcamp.com/
http://instagram.com/abroniaband
http://facebook.com/abroniapdx

cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/
https://cful.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/cardinalfuzz/
https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/

http://feedingtuberecords.com/
https://feedingtuberecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/feedingtuberecords_rozztoxart/
https://www.facebook.com/FeedingtubeRecords/

Abronia, “New Imposition” official video

Abronia, Shapes Unravel (2026)

A new Abronia album barely over a year since they put out their triumphant third record, Map of Dawn (review here)? Sort of. The Portland, Oregon, heavy psych/dark Americana crew offered that under-heralded LP — and it was plenty heralded, just not as much as it deserved — through Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records, and The High Desert Sessions isn’t quite a proper follow-up. The clue is in ‘Sessions,’ in the title. Delivered through the same labels as its predecessor — it came out last Friday and I already missed getting one of the edition-of-80 CDRs; tape is still available as I write this — and what it hints toward is a familiar escapist narrative of a band absconding from real life and its sundry woes, secluding themselves in some remote location, a cabin in the woods or some such, and focusing on nothing but creating music for some given time.

It is an experiment many have undertaken, and Abronia — vocalist/tenor saxophonist Keelin Mayer, guitarists Paul Michael Schaefer and Eric Crespo (the latter also sometimes vocals), bassist Shaun Lyvers, Shaver on the big drum, and Rick Pedrosa on pedal steel — use the opportunity to conjure 12 tracks across a sometimes challenging but still manageable 37-minute LP that, really, you don’t have to worry that it sold out in like a day, because the music itself demands more to be made, let alone the buying public.

Headphones are just about mandatory for what might be Abronia‘s Walden, regardless of the volume or concentration one might otherwise give it. The material is too nuanced, too much going on in the percussion jam of “No Time for a Fire” with the repetitive curls of sax worked into the rhythm, and much of the atmospheric vocal work will simply fade into the background of the varied pieces in which it appears. And it doesn’t always. Most of The High Desert Sessions is instrumental. The album is deeply flowing through many shifts in arrangement, as though each of the 12 inclusions is a snippet of a longer improvisation or exploration, and they’ve been edited and aligned together, bleeding directly from one to the next except where the band has made the choice not to, as with “Rough Eyed J.E.R.K.S.” and “Open the Door for Water,” which follows and is where a vinyl side A and B would split.

Crespo mixed and mastered, and regardless of how much is going on at any given point, whether it’s a piece like “Liar,” which grows relatively minimal in its middle, or “Winged Seeds” with its central guitar conversation. Much of the material is pastoral even before the pedal steel comes in, and The High Desert Sessions, though it goes a number of places Abronia haven’t gone before in terms of actual sounds being made, is consistent atmospherically with Map of Dawn, 2020’s The Whole of Each Eye (review here) and 2017’s Obsidian Visions/Shadowed Lands (review here). The basic fact of the matter is that their style is open enough that they can go where they want and have it fit. If nothing else, The High Desert Sessions argues that decisively.

But there is, of course, more in the pieces themselves. The nine-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Moving Furniture” is an obvious standout and focal point. Where most of The High Desert Sessions could be called interlaced snippets, pieces of jams edited together to create a varied flow across the two sides of the whole work — semi-raga second track “Thrushes” drone-meditating its way into the start of “No Time for a Fire,” the many fadeouts and -ins of side B as “Target Practice” moves from its maybe-a-scream and percussive ritualizing to the mellower and post-rocky “Barely a Season,” which feels more like it could be built into a proper Abronia ‘song,’ with Morricone flourish in the guitar and solidified bass and percussion beneath — and that methodology comports with the off-to-where-people-aren’t narrative behind the record’s making. They may well have had to relocate a couch or two as they got started, and for sure “Open the Door for Water” is the kind of thing one might find on a note or a printed sheet at an AirBNB off in the high desert, but “Moving Furniture” also clues the listener into the personality of the release, which is fortunate since it comprises about a quarter of its runtime.

Listen hard (with those headphones on) and you might hear someone yell ‘stop!’ at 7:43 amid the low-key wash of drones and chimes and various obscure instrumentation — instrument-wise, there is a lot on The High Desert Sessions that could be one thing or could be another, the band employing the usual sax and pedal steel as well as berimbau, dobro, banjo, bowed dulcimer, acoustic and electric guitars, maybe a keyboard in there? — but the song brings itself down gradually in thick-sounding cymbals, maybe-vocal and other drones, and a final move into more urgent big-drum thud, and a couple vocalizations before the serenity of “Thrushes” takes hold.

The experimentalist ethos becomes part of The High Desert Sessions‘ appeal, and whether one sits and picks apart each individual movement, the two-minute “Artemesia” with its rhythmic-pause lyrics, wavy guitar and pedal steel flourish and sudden rise of tape hiss at the end, or the crash-start “Rolling Mass” likewise feeling more ‘song’-ish with a plotted-seeming guitar figure at its core following the drum march, or lets the procession from one to the next hypnotize and carry through the full LP stretch — if you listen digitally or got one of those CDRs, you don’t even have to flip sides; nothing against tapes or vinyl — Abronia reward the experience.

But as to what’s making the string-ish sound in “Rough Eyed J.E.R.K.S.,” for example, I have no idea, though if you took a bowed dulcimer or a berimbau — and ran it through some pedals and were recording it live to an 8-track tape along with some organ and cymbals and drone, it might indeed end up so folkish and biting in the finished product. One way or the other, the bottom line is The High Desert Sessions gives a showcase to the experimental side of what Abronia do, letting listeners perhaps have a deeper look at their process, or at least how they work together with a single creative goal in mind. That it stands so well on its own as a full-length outing and does so much to complement their other work should be taken as another sign of how singular this band is becoming. The kind of outfit who can make moving furniture sound good.

Abronia, The High Desert Sessions (2023)

Abronia on Facebook

Abronia on Instagram

Abronia on Bandcamp

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Feeding Tube Records website

I was hoping I guess that at some point in the last 24 hours, Oregonian heavy Americana psych purveyors Abronia would post a track from their upcoming release, The High Desert Sessions, which they make efforts to distinguish from 2022’s Map of Dawn (review here) and whatever their next full-length will be, focusing on the open nature of the reclusion-jam experience, going away to the proverbial cabin in the woods — or in this case, the high(est) desert — to improvise and explore as one might in that less-distracting context. No such luck.

Fortunately, the description below from Feeding Tube Records‘ Byron Coley goes pretty deep in discussing the makings and results of this experiment on the band’s part, broadening the expectations of those familiar with their general songwriting modus while hinting at some of the personality aspects that carry over therefrom. As to whether or not opening track “Moving Furniture” lives up to its name in Abronia relocating a couch so they have room to jam, we’ll just have to wait and see.

From their Bandcamp:

ABRONIA – The High Desert Sessions

Releasing June 30th on cassette via Feeding Tube Records and CD-R via Cardinal Fuzz.

Recorded onto cassette 8 track in Central Oregon by Abronia. Mixed and Mastered at Torch Toucher by Eric Crespo.

From Byron Coley:
After recording three studio albums (two of which — 2019’s The Whole of Each Eye FTR498 and 2022’s Map of Dawn FTR669 — we were honored to co-release with Cardinal Fuzz), this amazing Portland OR sextet decided to try something different. An experiment. They packed a vanload of gear and headed out to a rural house in Central Oregon with an 8 track recorder. Besides their standard array of axes, they also brought various “little instruments” as well as acoustic strings and percussives of various stripes, then spent three full days jamming from very early to very late.

There was a lot improvisation, instrument swapping and musical hijinkery quite different from their standard approach. This resulted in a dozen tapes filled with all sorts of ideas and sounds, and the band started fiddling with them as soon as they got home. The High Desert Sessions is the result.

The music is arranged into two side-long suites, which ramble around some very weird stylistic junctures, ranging from dusty slide guitar segments to loud roars of rock aktion, dissonant blares of jazzoid skronk and dreamy smears of shimmering sunshine avant-pop. There are also a few winks of the massive drum/guitar dualism for which Abronia is known. But most of this tape explores previously unvisited sonic regions.

The High Desert Sessions’s first side offers a relatively unhurried flow, the flip has more squirrely segmentation, but it’s all cool as hell. And heard as a whole, it may augur some new points-of-interest that Abronia might be visiting in the future. Or not. Because that is the nature of experimentation. But it’s very hep to have this aural peek into their ongoing process. Especially because it all sounds great.

Can’t wait for the next album!

1. Moving Furniture
2. Thrushes
3. No Time for a Fire
4. Rough Eyed J.E.R.K.S.
5. Open the Door for Water
6. Winged Seeds
7. Rolling Mass
8. Target Practice
9. Barely a Season
10. Liar
11. Artemisia
12. Hot Spirits

https://www.facebook.com/AbroniaPDX
https://www.instagram.com/abroniaband/
https://abronia.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/
https://cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/
https://cful.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/FeedingtubeRecords/
https://feedingtuberecords.bandcamp.com/
http://feedingtuberecords.com/

Abronia, Map of Dawn (2022)

I wish I could say I planned it out ahead of time that the 100th episode of The Obelisk Show would coincide with both the final one of 2022 and the third of the three roundups of some of the year’s best in heavy, but I’m nowhere near that coordinated. Fortunate happenstance, then, and a killer show either way.

You might note the minor departure from the general format I use in that this one doesn’t end with an extended track. Fact is there was just more I wanted to include than there was room for, so I opted to pack in three or four shorter songs where there might otherwise be one. Nothing here tops 10 minutes long — CB3 is just over eight and that’s the longest — and I can’t remember the last time that happened.

Before I turn you over to the playlist itself, I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to Gimme Metal for allowing me to continue to do this show. Seems obvious to say, considering, you know, this site in general, but sharing music I dig is among my favorite things to do, and I value the opportunity to engage with Gimme’s audience as a part of that. Thank you to Tyler, Brian, Dean and the entire crew for having me and making this thing happen.

Thanks for listening if you do, thanks for reading if you are.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 12.23.22 (VT = voice track)

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Jan. 6 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

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Portland, Oregon’s Abronia released their third album, Map of Dawn (review here), earlier this year on Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records and spent a couple hot weeks in July on the road in Europe supporting it. As Fall comes to the Pacific Northwest, leaves changing color amid the evergreens, the band settle into the post-release comedown, going from, “We just put out a new LP,” to, “We released a record this year.”

The difference in mindset isn’t nothing, especially after a tour like they did, going abroad for what I’m pretty sure was their first time as a band, on the strength of their finest work to-date, living what many in the US continue to think of as ‘the dream’ for celebrating a new release. And hey, the vinyl’s sold out internationally (still some left for North America), so in addition to the aesthetic accomplishments of Map of Dawn, it’s also been well received. You would mark it a win, is what I’m saying.

But that aftermath can be a doldrum stretch for a group. Less going on at home than away, some of the hoopla surrounding the actual release process lessened over time, and so on. So they’ve got a new video for “Plant the Flag,” which is the second cut on Map of Dawn behind the opener “Night Hoarders,” and it’s creative right unto being presented in a box-tv format. I’m assuming that’s a social media thing, but it does cleverly capture more of a phone screen, and it looks different than most of what’s out there and shooting for cinematic in terms of aspect ratios.

Further, the video emphasizes the depth of atmosphere that Abronia have made their own in the spheres of psychedelic Westernism and heavy psychedelia, encapsulating the cohesion with which they bring these ideas together through songwriting quickly in under four minutes. It thereby serves all the more useful as a post-release single to draw in those who either missed the release in May, meant to dig deeper into the record and got distracted by something else — that happens, even with really good records — or who’ve never heard the band before and might not have an idea what they’re about.

Not that “Plant the Flag” is a complete summary, but on Map of Dawn, it is effective in drawing you deeper into the album, and as a standalone it was certainly more than enough that I went ahead and started streaming the full thing again which, if it needs to be said, is not a thing I regret as “Plant the Flag” gives way to “Games” with such fluidity. Maybe you’ll feel the same. Bandcamp player’s near the links at the bottom if you’d like to find out after you watch the video.

Which is right here, followed by some comment from the band and credits and whatnot. Enjoy:

Abronia, “Plant the Flag” official video

Eric Crespo on “Plant the Flag”:

This video was made by our pedal steel Rick Pedrosa. It includes images that we cut out as potential collage fodder for our album covers, but didn’t end up using. For this video he place the images behind glass and poured different colored dyes over the glass.

Video by Rick Pedrosa and Abronia–”Plant the Flag” from the album “Map of Dawn” released on vinyl by Cardinal Fuzz (UK/EU/The World) and Feeeding Tube Records (North America).

Vinyl copies available for North America available at https://feedingtuberecords.com/releases/map-of-dawn/

Vinyl through Cardinal Fuzz (Europe/UK/rest of World) currently Sold Out.

Digital at http://abronia.bandcamp.com

Abronia, Map of Dawn (2022)

Abronia on Facebook

Abronia on Instagram

Abronia on Bandcamp

Cardinal Fuzz Records on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz Records store

Cardinal Fuzz Records on Bandcamp

Feeding Tube Records on Facebook

Feeding Tube Records on Bandcamp

Feeding Tube Records website

From Portland, Oregon, Abronia are set to travel at the end of this month to begin a round of European and UK shows that includes stops in Croatia, Italy, Germany and France (as well as the UK, duh). They’ll be abroad for 17 dates — a healthy tour, and if I’m not mistaken their first on the continent — and while the impetus occasion seems to be a slot at Supersonic in Birmingham, they’ll also be at Eastfilly Fest in Stuttgart, Germany to close out the run.

Fair enough, and if you’re wondering, yes, I’m having a good time posting all these tour dates the last few weeks. If I told you how I’d missed it, you wouldn’t believe me. All the better to see Abronia get across the Atlantic, since they go in support of their third full-length and finest work to-date, Map of Dawn (review here), newly out on Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records.

I’m on board with the whole idea, fine, but my question is whether or not the “big drum” that they use in place of a standard kit will be making the journey or if there’s some contingency in place. Do you ship it ahead of time? Line up a rental or a borrow for the shows? Buy one and use it as a raft to float back? These are logistical questions only the band can answer, and frankly, I’d feel silly if I asked.

Dates from socials:

ABRONIA EURO & UK TOUR

Final European/UK Tour Dates:

Thu.30.6.22 HR ZAGREB – Club Mochvara
Fri.1.7.22 IT BOLOGNA – Freakout
Sat.2.7.22 – IT GAVERIN TERME – Colle Gallo (House Concert)
Sun.3.7.22 DE MUNICH- Neitzsche-Keller
Mon.4.7.22 DE BERLIN -Schokoladen
Tue.5.7.22 DE KUSEL – Schalander
Wed.6.7.22 FR ROUEN – Le 3 Pieces
Thu.7.7.22 UK HASTINGS – The Piper
Fri.8.7.22 UK BIRMINGHAM – Supersonic Festival
Sat.9.7.22 UK LONDON – 229 London
Sun.10.7.22 UK MANCHESTER – Retro Manchester
Mon.11.7.22 UK DUMFRIES – The Venue
Tue.12.7.22 UK BRISTOL -The Lanes
Wed.13.7.22 UK BRIGHTON – The Hope and Ruin
Thu.14.7.22 FR PARIS – Olympic Cafe
Fri.15.7.22 DE SAARBRÜCKEN – The Silo
Sat.16.7.22 DE STUTTGART – Eastfilly Fest

https://www.facebook.com/AbroniaPDX
https://www.instagram.com/abroniaband/
https://abronia.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/
https://cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/
https://cful.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/FeedingtubeRecords/
https://feedingtuberecords.bandcamp.com/
http://feedingtuberecords.com/

Abronia, Map of Dawn (2022)