Yes, I Dont Know

Recent FatCat signings, Abdomen, are a Netherlands power trio, sometimes described in the Dutch press as “post-grunge garage”. The name ‘Abdomen’ reflects the directness of their approach and attack - a “gut feeling”. They worked with Rasmus Bredvig (Tapetown, Aarhus, DK) on their new, sophomore long-player, Yes, I Don’t Know.

Dazed is heavy, heavy hypnotic groove. With a chanted vocal and wall of phased, psychedelic shredding, there are echoes of outfits such as Loop and Spacemen 3. Their stoned / stoner “aesthetics” all be it turned up to 11. A head-banging, trance-inducing, transcendental raga, with its sights set on spiritual lift-off, the piece aims to create a path away from the negative toward a more positive way of life.

Damage Tool is a ditty about a panic attack, while racing through a city alone – noticing you’re breathing weirdly before regaining control. Rapid, repetitive metallic riffing, that recalls Atomizer-era Big Black (back when Steve Albini was name-checking Electrifying Mojo, Detroit’s ground-breaking proto-techno radio DJ). On Numbers Meijer’s drums are filtered and fucked with, resembling a busted drum machine. Kamsma’s bass is fingered furiously. The combined attack coming on like a ramped, revved up Joy Division. Weird Shapes is about bucking routine to create new possibilities, opportunities, and set to breakneck bashing. Neurotic details the shedding of strange habits. Packing plenty of punk power - a point of reference is early, arty, Sonic Youth. Fish I and II, though, are “ambient interludes - field recordings, “harvested” from factories and plants to convey the oppressive, depressive nature of their industrial hometown.

Yes, I Don’t Know opens with fragile, picking, floating in reverb. For a second fooling you into thinking that you’re listening to a Robin Guthrie / Cocteau Twins tune, before serrated, cyclical slashing “serenades”, Van Beets’ words concerned with the awful crushing, gaping hole, of a lover’s passing. Good Vibes rails against people putting a dysfunctional label on you. Songs such as Salmon play with hardcore US punk. Violently stopping and starting it tells the tale of the titular fish, exhausted by its efforts swimming against relentless opposing currents. Exhale, a furious space rock flight, as incendiary as, say, Icarus Line’s Penance Soirée, finds its protagonist taking a deep breath, knowing that something within themselves, how they’re behaving, ain’t right. The almost funky, Das Kapital lyrics deal with the fight for acceptance, yet constantly being corrected for getting it wrong. The tracks alludes to both band and song being named after Karl Marx’s text on the economic structure of society.

Peter’s lyrics can sometimes be extremely personal, but the band are at pains to point out that it’s the listener’s interpretation that’s all important. In the past Abdomen have been called “angry”, however, if the album has an overriding message or theme, then it’s about coming to terms with your emotions, cauterising wounds, growing, and moving on.