Abacot – Songs About Problems | Album Review

Abacot and Many Hats Distribution

It’s been almost three years, but I still remember where I was when I first heard Abacot’s EP Promo 2023. I had just hiked over a bridge for a mile in direct sunlight, and it was only getting hotter as I tried to get through my dreaded commute. I made the mistake of wearing a cloying polyester dress, and mosquitoes were tearing me up as I descended the endless Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan escalator. Ultimately, it was just a regular Tuesday in July. I waited for the train, squeezed in, and, naturally, the A.C. was out. I checked my phone while crammed between two businessmen and saw that Swim Into The Sound had reviewed a new EP from a band in the DMV, so I listened to the whole thing through the rest of my commute. I was late for work.

It’s been a couple of years and change since I was sweating it out on that train, and Abacot has returned with a follow-up to that EP today — Songs About Problems is here in all of its bright and bitter glory. For those out of the loop, Abacot is a project helmed by Claudio Benedi, the former frontman of D.C.’s beloved Commander Salamander. Abacot always feels like a true puzzle piece to understanding the larger regional rock sound: this album was produced and engineered by Ryland Heagy, and better yet, when they perform live, their shows are stacked with familiar faces from the world of DMV music (think Combat, think Origami Angel).

Songs About Problems picks up where Promo 2023 left off. While it still features the three songs from that initial EP (with some rerecording), the concentrated misery underpinning all of Promo 2023 is expanded into a rounder emotional release. Benedi totally recontextualizes the initial project – one born out of grief, betrayal, and banality – and transforms it into an examination of difficult personal growth after these dark moments have passed. Beyond the inimitable ear of Ryland Heagy, this album was mixed by Drew Portalatin, the mastermind behind Origami Angel’s mixtape The Brightest Days and Combat’s instant thrasher classic, Stay Golden. It was also mastered by Will Yip, fresh off his Grammy win for Turnstile’s NEVER ENOUGH —a combination that instantly pushes Songs About Problems into an echelon of undeniable ragers.

Sonically, Songs About Problems starts somewhere in 2001 or maybe 2003; I’m still debating the exact year, but it was definitely when you could buy checkered wristbands at Hot Topic, guys in emo bands wore collared shirts, and it was mandatory to spike your hair like Deryck Whibley. The lyrics of “Remember When” match this nostalgic sound as Benedi reflects on the distance between him and a former friend. What starts as something The Starting Line-adjacent switches up mid-song, and Benedi shows off his guitar prowess, a sound distinctly reminiscent of that early ‘20s emo sound he helped popularize, across the bridge.

The frustration of “Remember Me” softens into “One Way Street,” a daringly optimistic song. Benedi is a very talented musician, and one of his undeniable strengths is his ability to create absolute earworms. After just one listen to the chorus, I caught myself singing along to that helplessly catchy, “And I’m yours / are you mine?” on the second spin. The song chugs along, evoking a kind of Fountains of Wayne-style build before opening into “Check Engine Light” and “Vertigo” from Promo EP. 

These songs have lived on my shelf and in my playlists for three years, and they are still just as electric as they were when I first listened to them on that Metro ride. I’ve thought about “Check Engine Light” every time I can’t get my car engine to turn over when it gets a bit too cold out. “Vertigo,” devastating yet unafraid to get a little King of the Hill-theme song with it, has been perpetually stuck in my head since the first time I heard Benedi sing “I see all your lies / I see through your disguise!” 

After revisiting these tracks from the Promo EP, we have some songs that totally reorient the Abacot project from something wrought with nausea and exhaustion into a broader, more pop-bent with begrudging positivity. “Vertigo” launches into the anthemic, arena-rock “Show You,” molding Benedi’s shapeshifting agony into a single question: “I freed my heart / what about you?” On “Iridescent,” he flexes his Bowling For Soup-y humor over a song that could easily soundtrack a Tony Hawk Pro Skater game, and the synths on “Drifter” take the whole album to Saturn and back.

In Swim Into The Sound’s initial review, Taylor Grimes aptly diagnosed how “When people think of ‘emo music,’ they tend to think of sappy, tappy, whiny bullshit. That’s all well and good, but it’s SUMMER, and the people need something light, something they can sing along to with the windows down.” That’s what “Horror,” the third song from Promo EP, does. While the other two carryover songs are visceral in their anguish, “Horror” is hauntingly hopeful. Benedi soars into the song as he sings, “If we’re going to make it / I know we’re gonna make it to the end.”

“Horror,” in this new context, provides the perfect aerial arc for the album’s ending on the titular “Songs About Problems.” I wouldn’t call it a positive or even a helpful song, any more than I’d call this album particularly optimistic, but it’s honest and self-assured. Benedi doesn’t necessarily regret these difficult years, but that doesn’t mean that the outcomes don’t still hurt. Instead, he diffuses what frustrates him the most and recognizes it in others. We will get through this together.

I don’t live in D.C. anymore and no longer have to do that long commute, but for one day, I wish I could do it one more time, listening to Songs About Problems.

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Caro Alt (she/her) is from New Orleans, Louisiana, and if she could be anyone in The Simpsons, she would be Milhouse.

Abacot – Promo 2023 | EP Review

Self-released

When people think of “emo music,” they tend to think of sappy, tappy, whiny bullshit. That’s all well and good, but it’s SUMMER, and the people need something light, something they can sing along to with the windows down. After all, don’t the emo kids deserve to have some upbeat jams too? That intoxicating (and almost contradictory) promise of emo sentiments wrapped in a sunny optimism is exactly what Abacot is dishing up on their inaugural three-song promo tape.

Abacot is a Virginia-based emo outfit fronted by Claudio Benedi, the primary songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist behind Commander Salamander. For those who need a bit of a history lesson, Commander Salamander (lovingly referred to by fans as Comma Salad) was a punk-leaning emo trio who were active from 2017 to 2021. The group first became known among the wider DIY scene with Gross October, an EP released on the now-defunct Chatterbot Records. While that label exploded in spectacular fashion, this connection made Comma Salad labelmates and piers with bands like Origami Angel, Stars Hollow, Equipment, and Michael Cera Palin.

After an insanely catchy double, the group released a split with Origami Angel at the start of 2019 that saw both bands plotting an upward ascent bonded by mutual admiration and their shared home of Washington, DC. In the summer of that same year, the group put out their most actualized release, Off the Goop, not even 10 minutes of shouty punk music that came with its own plush toy. 

In October of 2021, tragedy struck both Commander Salamander and the larger DIY community when the band’s drummer, Liam Crone, passed away. Following an outpouring of love and support, the band and Crone’s family set up the Liam Crone Memorial Scholarship through Berklee College of Music. Commander Salamander memorialized Crone by collecting their discography and adorning the cover with his image, essentially putting the project to rest and allowing Crone’s memory (and exuberant drumming) to live on forever through the music. 

After years of grieving and working through the loss of his friend, Benedi has returned to music with three songs meant to represent different aspects from three of the worst years of his life. Everything from the mundanities of car ownership to the complexities of human relationships and mental health are all covered in the project’s scant 10 minutes. 

Even as he presents the worst that life has dealt to him, Benedi swaddles these narratives in breezy swoons and bouncy guitarwork, making each feel like a parable told from the perspective of someone who’s made it through these things and come out the other side a stronger person. 

Opening track, “Check Engine Light,” is a soaring song about the trials and tribulations of owning a twenty-plus-year-old beater, told in the style of Jail Socks/Kerosene Heights southeast emo. Anyone that’s ever had to hand-crank their windows or ignore a dashboard light because they’re already late to work will likely find some relatability here, inevitably sucked into the chorus whenever they see a mysterious yellow symbol light up on their car. 

Things go from annoying to dire on “Vertigo,” a track about the disorienting experience of navigating a relationship with a narcissist. Appropriately, the instrumental jostles the listener around until the end of the song appears like a light at the end of a tunnel, finally presenting a way out. Similarly, “Horror” imagines an anxiety attack as the relentless villain of a slasher flick, complete with slick guitar solos and even some splashes of organ throughout.

Decidedly less punk-leaning than Commander Salamander, the three songs on Abacot’s promo tape showcase an artist metamorphosing into something fresh but familiar. After losing a close friend and bandmate (on top of everything else the world has collectively experienced over the past three years), it’s nice to hear from Claudio again in such a different form. 

While Comma Salad specialized in one-minute ragers, Abacot songs sprawl out into a more standard 3-minute run time. The emo pop sensibilities that poked through on tracks like “Scooter” have been refined and are cast in a new light under the Abacot name. This project also continues the streak of DC collaboration, with Origami Angel’s Ryland Heagy helping flesh these tracks out from their demo form and doubling as the tape’s producer. 

If these tracks present the worst that Benedi has incurred over the last few years, having these songs packaged up and out into the world must feel like a relief. By releasing this three-track tape, it means these events have been weathered, that they are in the past, that they’re finally over. One would hope that this is a necessary part of closure and working these things out of your system, and by listening to them, we’re not just hearing new songs from an artist we love, but we’re leaving all of this in the past too. Here’s to Abacot and whatever comes next.