Abe Vigoda

If you take The Fader's word for it, you pretty much have to see Abe Vigoda. In fact, if you take their word for it, you should probably stop listening to anything other than Abe Vigoda. The magazine's editors have gone gaga for the band they dubbed "the lone practitioner of tropicali punk." It's hard to fault them for it. When Fader asked frontman Michael Vidal about his songwriting, he told the magazine: "What I want to present, as far as feeling, is putting this really dark, deep thing inside on display. It can be really ugly but it can be really great, but it's totally secret and celebrating and showcasing it as what it is." Not a great explanation, as far as "words" or "sentences" go, but you can see there's a lot going on in this guy's head. And maybe that's where the band's sound is coming from. The wall of sound, the mix of styles, the vocals that alternate between howling and spooky harmonizing — it all comes together in an impressive blend.