MP3 Review: Abigail & Daisy "Abigail & Daisy"

[$6 AUD // Edition of 50 // https://abigailanddaisy.bandcamp.com/album/abigail-daisy]

Abigail & Daisy are a duo but they are not actually named Abigail & Daisy.   It is not like Sonny & Cher in that way.   Why have the stage names?  I don't know, but I like the idea that it kind of messes with people.   From experience though, when they play live shows I just know they're going to get asked which one is Abigail and which one is Daisy because it's something I've only ever heard from bands with similar names complain about, but you know, so is life.   I would just start telling people I was Abigail but you could call me Abby.  

And now a song-by-song review of the self-titled EP because there is no better way to do it.


<1> "Summer Song" - We begin with dreamy and clanky guitars.   When the drums come in with vocals they're singing about summer and it reminds me of Shannan and the Clams.   It's that Buddy Holly feel that has some influences within modern music but I can never find very good ones so now instead of using Shannan and the Clams I'll just pick up on Abigail & Daisy, at least for this song about what season it is right now.   Though Australia is the opposite of us, so it's winter there now, right?   This is a moderately paced song with an upbeat and dreamy tempo.   Hints of "That Thing You Do!" come out as well.

<2> "Suga Town" - Dreamy again but this time with carnival type of keyboard loops coming through.  It could be a casio type of keyboard sound, but they have those short progressions in loops so it reminds me of some kind of carnival ride for sure.   She stretches out the title in the chorus to say "Shoo-shoo-shoo Suga Town", though she does make more than just one set of the three "shoo"s.    I'm not sure if "Suga Town" is something that I don't get because maybe it's an Australian thing or if it has something to do with love (like how people call kisses "sugar"), but if this was a real place this would be a great theme song for it.   There are also some la-la-la's and oh-oh-oh's.

<3> "Kevin" - I don't know many people named Kevin, but here we go.  We open with some pretty heavy chords ala The Cranberries.   No distortion though, just showing you how much you can work if you try.  I do believe I hear a tambourine in with the percussion now and though there were some vocal tones in the beginning of the song there aren't really lyrics yet.   Okay, there seems to be one or two lines that they're singing as almost a mantra of some sort but it's not nearly the same as the other songs with the sing along quality.   I feel like I'm part of a drum circle and as the "oh-oh-aye"'s come out I can only restate my idea of there not being any words within the lyrics. Still, this is a peaceful song and the percussion can pick things up but I still like it as the second song was a progression of the first but this just feels like its own album just on this song.

<4> "In The Morning" - Buzzing tones take us back to the keyboards and the bells are shaking.   The vocals come out in closer to a yelling manner than they were on the previous songs and there are also backing vocals.   It's very direct in the way that the chorus is "I saw you standing there in the morning".   This isn't the happy, upbeat song we heard prior to this as it seems a bit angry (which if you listen to the verses you can hear as well) and it has that Delta Dart/Sleater Kinney/some other indie rock band feel to it and I like it because after a sort of pause on the third song we return with a vengeance.  The shaking of rhe bells like this usually reminds me of the holidays (Christmas, 'cause of "Jingle Bells" and all), but this song is just projecting this serious tone on borderline anger-- the best word to describe it is stern-- and that makes me forget about the ideas of the holidays.

<5> "Busy Tones" - Distorted tones come in with the similar sounds of the first two songs and as such this makes a sort of combination of the first two songs and the fourth.   The lyrics are about calling someone and getting a busy signal, but everyone either has call waiting or just goes to voice mail now, right?  There really aren't busy signals anymore, are there?  Maybe in Australia?   I'll have to ask Danica Woodland.  Though she is also singing about New York City so who knows what's going on in this song.    It's faster paced than the previous song and comes out somewhere between Delta Dart and Blondie.   As I keep mentioning certain other bands as well, I must point out some of the similarities between Abigail & Daisy and Soft Lions, another one of my newer favorite bands.


So for this EP we really just have four songs- each on the opposite side of three- which build on top of one another.   If you think of Song 1 and being itself, then Song 2 is really another layer added onto it, while Song 4 adds onto the already added onto Song 2 and so on for the fifth and final song.    The third song, of course, is just this peaceful interlude but I still love it and appreciate that they can break up the idea the progression to kind of throw you off and perhaps make you think it isn't there.   But I caught it because I'm clever.  (Or it's just because I pay attention)

I'm not sure how this cassette is divided by sides because with an uneven number of songs I can never really be sure.   I think I'd rather the first three songs go onto Side A and then the last two are on Side B if I had to choose for the pacing of it all, but as Bandcamp tells me this entire EP is about thirteen minutes and so the best bet would be to just have the five songs on both sides so you can hear them through the order and in full without having to flip sides.   Yes, this EP is an instance of when I would not want to hear a cassette break and have to flip sides, which I'm not sure I've ever typed before.

Still, a cassette nonetheless and a fine piece of music definitely worth your time whether you buy the cassette and listen to it- as it would come out well I'd imagine, as if this was made in the United States I'd think it was through Wiener Records- or simply just download/stream it, but be sure to send the artist some money so we can hear some more wonderful songs such as these five here.