The Spider Accomplice – Los Angeles: The Abduction
BANDCAMP: https://thespideraccomplice.bandcamp.com/album/los-angeles-the-abduction
Los Angeles: The Abduction is the latest release from The Spider Accomplice. It’s the second entry in their Los Angeles Trilogy and carries on the highly imaginative work heard on the earlier album Los Angeles: The Trap while still building it with an even more inspired approach to their trademark melodic hard rock style. It isn’t all guitar bashing and percussion histrionics though. The band incorporates an assortment of soundscapes and alternative textures into many of the EP’s six songs without ever diverting themselves from their core sound. The lyrical content has an idiosyncratic slant, but it is remarkably poetic at times and vocalist VK Lynne delivers the lyrics in a variety of inventive ways while maintaining a consistent approach across the board. Her fellow musicians Justin Lee Dixon on drums and Arno Nurmisto on guitar and backing vocals provide all the needed after punch to make this a knockout effort from its first track to its last.
The band has a habit of introducing the songs with brief conceptual introductions intended as scene setting pieces and it is, arguably, the only possible nod towards pretentiousness to be found on Los Angeles: The Abduction. The first track “Bromlaid” features the same element, but it doesn’t affect the song in any measurable respect because of its brief duration. The song quickly transforms into an extended rave up reliant on a careful weaving of the band’s instruments before launching into its theatrical and equally stirring main portion. The unquestionable peak of the track, however, is Lynne’s amazing voice. On each song, she gets inside the material without ever risking self indulgence and manifests a variety of voices that embodies the often vivid lyrical content. This is likely illustrated no better than on the second track “Messy Vampire” thanks to her ability to take on a much darker tone that, nevertheless, resolutely maintains its musicality throughout the song. The band sprint through the track with spot on, but rambunctious, glee that will draw listeners in from the first and hold their attention throughout. “Behold the Day” takes a different turn and couples an unusual rhythm with great guitar work that ranges from melodic blasts of phrases into much more considered, sinewy guitar during the verses. Lynne shows that she’s a singer who doesn’t attempt to control the spotlight and, instead, cuts her singing to suit the song as closely as possible.
“You Still Lie” is clearly a much more mainstream rock minded song, but that doesn’t mean the band’s unique personality doesn’t clearly come out in the track. Lynne’s performance, however, is particularly distinctive thanks to the cutting emotion she summons for the performance. The ending cut “Hollywood Hotel” is the rock song par excellence to come out of this release, but it is slightly marred by the overextended spoken word set piece beginning the composition. No matter though – The Spider Accomplice put on a hard rock clinic here with excellent lyrics to match. Few bands today inhabit the hinterlands between cutting edge and tradition like this band. Los Angeles: The Abduction has something to offer every listener.
8 out of 10 stars
I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/los-angeles-the-abduction-ep/id1159575049
William Elgin
