Abolitionist is a punk band hailing from Portland, Ore. which makes pretty, like, bog-standard mid-tempo melodic hardcore, and 2018’s The Instant fits perfectly into this bog-standard mold. Galloping drum fills that feel like they were punched out of a Gunpla kit, the inclusion of strictly-regulation hardcore chord progressions, vocals that sound like they were recorded during a hypnosis session with the singer, and “socially-conscious” lyrics which barely raise above the background radiation of the genre they were birthed in all combine to make an album which should have me moshing but instead barely got my toes tapping across its 23-minute runtime. Not wholly skippable, but also not at all memorable.
One Paragraph 1: Abolitionist, “The Instant” LP
Abolitionist is a punk band hailing from Portland, Ore. which makes pretty, like, bog-standard mid-tempo melodic hardcore, and 2018’s The Instant fits perfectly into this bog-standard mold. Galloping drum fills that feel like they were punched out of a Gunpla kit, the inclusion of strictly-regulation hardcore chord progressions, vocals that sound like they were recorded during a…