Abe Vigoda

No, it’s not what you’re thinking. This isn’t the debut album by the veteran actor best known for ’70s sitcom Barney Miller and his multitude of premature obituaries. Instead, it’s a relatively young band from Los Angeles via Chino who’ve enough pep and pop in them to resurrect any dead TV star. Just in time for the summer, this Los Angeles crew have prepped a warm and sunny first record for No Age drummer Dean Spunt’s PPM label. Tagged appropriately as "tropical pop punk,” Abe Vigoda inject Caribbean vibes and worldly rhythms into the DIY punk ethics they grew up with. The result is Skeleton, a restless effort that sounds like a completely different band from the amateurish noise of their 2006 debut, Kid City. Though the jittery power is still very much present, the band have narrowed their focus and sharpened their skill, turning the Afro-leaning rhythms that Vampire Weekend recently popularised for the indie set upside down. These rhythmic left turns are aided by their frantic bursts of melodic dissonance, which play out like an arm wrestling match between sweetness and chaos. Skeleton is very much like the warm sounds you’d hear radiating from Club Med. That is if it was overrun by kids freaking out on a laced Kool-Aid high.