Gabagool Demo

Gabagool Demo by Gabagool is an eccentric and bold thrash punk project out of Baltimore that captures this contradictory sense of anger and freedom. The first two tracks, Quasimodo and Big Nothing, introduce us to the piece’s sound immediately. There are no false pretences here, just a dive straight down into crunchy guitar distortion and emotive vocal performances. To describe the vocal as emotive really doesn’t do it justice. It’s aggressive and confident while also communicating this gravelly intensity that elevates it over other tracks in the genre.

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It also matches the sonic palette of the guitar. The two work together to create this miasma of sound that lingers and moulds into different textural and tonal layers. At the core of Gabagool’s DNA is this infamous mixture of vocals and guitar. With the distortion on the guitars, the weight of the vocal does a great job to elevate that sound with its similarities, each aspect highlights the strengths of the other with its similar tonal qualities. The next track that stood to me was TLDR. It feels like from this impossible high that the project has started on with Quasimodo and Big Nothing, the project steps it up again significantly with TLDR. The guitar and vocals that were at ten have now been pushed up to eleven, with greater confidence, energy and power. With that being said, this project maintains this power even in its more subtle moments, which to be fair are still quite intense. It is rare to find a piece in this genre that is able to ebb and flow tonally because once you hit eleven it’s hard to go back to ten. The final track, Gritty, does feel more punk than thrash, doom, which is a nice tonal shift to round the project out. I’m impressed that they’ve managed to stay so true to their tonal vision while still allowing changes in their melodic structure.