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En Theory

by Abacus

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  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Debut album, En Theory, limited edition cassette. Black cassette with red tape. Original artwork by Fernando Peña of Celldeth. Cassette artwork layout by Holli Strickland. Digital download code included.

    Includes unlimited streaming of En Theory via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Gatefold digipak with 6 panel insert
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Gatefold digipak with 6 panel insert // Artwork by Fernando Peña of Celldeth

    Includes unlimited streaming of En Theory via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.
2.
Intentions 02:18
i drive all the need and all the want of everyone scheming all the time. don’t ask anything of me. shame on me. spread to thin for anything this time. there are things asked of me weighing me down over time. says the limit on demanding tasks. please give me a chance to live without fear. bury all your dreams. no one will see. if they do, oh well. better for me. selfish me. did you see me? one way pass to the show.
3.
Snake Eater 02:27
taste all the slime that traces back to me. i don’t care that its bad. no one ever came to me and asked me what i think about life. scream all day. even if it works out at all. no one ever came to me and asked me what i think about death. failure to act is as evil as it gets. someone somewhere saw something. we don’t need another kennedy, stinking up the place. we don’t need another president dead. we tried every single day. we tried and failed. another body rises from the grave. even if it never died at all. no one ever came to me and asked me what i think about god. scream all day. even if it works out at all. no one ever came to me and asked me what i think about the truth. let them carry my bones over the hill. righteous on their own. one by one, we peel. wipe from the clean slate that we made in confidence while we’re here. one by one, every word stains.
4.
Loyal Death 03:53
staring at the back door. waiting for a sign to enter. hold your breath. trained since birth to be loyal until death. we said no one would get hurt. no one here is innocent. the stakes have never been higher. one mistake and no one survives. we’ll hang if they find out what happened here. enemy of life. conspirator of death accomplice to grief. harbinger of lies. we are everything you said. loyal until death.
5.
A Figment 01:18
6.
drive me forward until i’m sick.i don’t need this insecurity lingering all the time. someone told me to hold my breath, close my eyes and count backwards from ten. i don’t need the false empathy floating above me in the air. i don’t claim to know the answers to the pointless questions that are posed. we don’t have faith in the world or in those that pull the strings. we are captains of abandoned ships, crashing upon the jagged cliffs. our sails have caught a bad wind, guiding us to the great unknown. destined for a shipwreck. destined for more of the same. all heads down. over again. writhing on the floor. silence greets the weak. outstretched hands point towards the sky. we tried. over the dead’s lies. everything we’ve accomplished is falling overboard.
7.
Disclaim 02:29
rights of old stay true to me. we are still running out of time. my eyes have seen worse. i’ve broken silence. now they wait. no one will fucking care that you’re a fucking invent piece of shit swine. from tarnished cups we drink. no one will fucking care that you’re a fucking invent piece of shit swine. we cross the bridge that we built with our hands. lay mortar, brick by brick. ascend man’s plane. now nothing’s working out. safe. no unwell be unaware of our plans made from my bed. hold your head strong above the best of the tensions laid to rest.
8.
all these walking falsehoods, mingling through the crowds without perspective. when you are the savior looking back inside the open wound no suture can close. all that’s left is real. scathing. dead. there is nothing that can bring back the light inside. all the eyes are blind. glare at the dead sky. find kinship. time to end this obsession. scour all roads. turn every stone home to rejects. they say you shouldn’t buy anything. learn enough to show everyone you can think. we’re all dead. take care to avoid each other in the event no one shows you everything you need to know. now feed your mind. when you think back to a time before god and his reach wan’t so wide spread. true peace. tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean will be flat again.
9.
En Theory 03:05
a thought that deters more thinking. systematic failure is the only way to live. everything that could be, an eventuality. a single point in an endless system. an unknown event. a miracle. improbable entry. just another theory that makes my mind full of trash. every bite we steal from someone else’s plate is another thing to covet, another thing to hide. they are every struggle, tearing down every wall in every home. hidden by a self inflicted ego, masked by a sense of pride. self made men side by side. they stumble. find another way out from underneath. turn about their fair play. inside out under the lights. nothing can be right ever again. discarded. they were right to judge me.
10.
a dead parent is better than no parent. a dead child is better than no child. a perfect family.

about

"At large, metal finally seems be opening its borders, shedding subgenre orthodoxy to chart new courses. At this point, nobody’s going to out-blitz Napalm Death’s 1985 LP Scum or outlast any of Sunn O)))’s intricate and maleficent quarter-hour drones. And with blasphemers like Deafheaven and Liturgy offering new on-ramps to the left-hand path, the old guard is increasingly old hat."

"But we needn’t ring the death knell for metal. Take, as an example, Columbia’s own Abacus, whose full-length debut, En Theory, mines generations of heavy music — from acrobatic math-rock to blunt-force hardcore — inviting heads to be both banged and scratched."

"Where the band’s 2013 EP skewed hardcore, volleying between crust-punk’s straight-ahead charge and the jagged, erratic eruptions of ‘90s hardcore, En Theory more fully synthesizes the band’s inspirations. On “Loyal Death,” a raw, grindcore blast beat rolls into a d-beat stomp that drives momentum behind a corkscrewing post-hardcore riff. The rhythm stays bullet-straight as guitars make jagged, short-blade cuts. “Nothing Is Sacred” closes the album with bleak black metal, riding a blast-beat barrage with tremolo-picked chords carving a spartan melody from the deafening din. Rather than a series of stylistic exercises stitching together disparate scraps, Abacus treats these elements as cut from the same cloth."

"The results are thrilling. The ominous acoustic passage “A Figment” flows gracefully into the angled blues-metal riff that opens “Bodies of Water.” It’s not a gambit or a gimmick — neither a prog-metal lark or a calculated break for sensitivity — but a new shading of familiar contours. In freeing itself to embrace all things heavy, without the burden of context, Abacus has produced a fresh, exciting and righteously heavy album. In such hands, metal remains alive and well."

- Bryan C. Reed, The Free-Times, Feb. 25, 2015

www.free-times.com/music/abacuss-en-theory-022515

credits

released March 3, 2015

abacus is:

Josh Bumgarner - guitars
Alex Strickland - vocals
Paul Huff - percussion
Kevin Scruggs - bass

A 10 Foot Woody Release.
All music written, arranged and performed by abacus.
Recorded and mixed at Jam Room Studio.
Produced by Phillip Cope.
Engineered by Zac Thomas & Phillip Cope.
Mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege.
Artwork by Fernando Peña at Celldeth.

Thank you Columbia, SC.

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Abacus Columbia, South Carolina

Assholes that don't know their place...

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