Fear Pageant is the seventh solo album by Throwing Muses/Belly/50ft Wave legend Fred Abong carrying on from 2022's Yellowthroat album and mining similar dark sparse territory.
The album opens with Father a very typical Fred Abong song, it's at his usual slow to medium pace, strummed acoustic guitar, with additional effects with Fred's deep vocals telling a story about Father and his relationship to him, two thirds of the way through it shifts like something major took place, as Fred asks if it's hurting, as the piano gentle tinkles in the background on what was the first single from the album.
Half Wit has a supremely sparse backing, as the tale of the Half Wit unfolds like scenes from several lives, references to his musical youth accented with organ sounds, accent the need to be as distant as can be from the object of this song, as the rains come down.
Fear Pageant is a dark look at the state of the allegedly free United States, burnished vocals searching for a more loving world, among the ruins of the 2020's, as the gentle keyboards build behind the acoustic guitar, shifting to watch that levee break, hearts rent asunder once more.
Hungry Ghost feels like a late-night lullaby whose strings gently caress your ears, as you relax floating away as Fred croons in your ears about a ghost who is not as friendly as Caspar.
Bats takes us deep into the woods at dusk, as the Bats are about to come out of the nook to fly around, Fred has shinned up the tree, he is trying to block the exit with superglue, before telling us all to turn off the news, don't let that filth penetrate your mind as this gently swells.
America 808 is a funeral paced evocation of the sorry state of America, the diseased hatred, suppurating pores bleeding hatred and despair, as Fred evokes the dreams and hopes of his immigrant father, who arrived from the Philippines, as this reworks Simon & Garfunkel into something far darker.
My Way has lots of audience noise and ambient noises in the intro of this new song, that may take the Sinatra classic as blueprint or basis, but this is very different, as that impossible dream is so much further way.
Shadows is muted brass set against the ever present strummed acoustic guitar as we wonder what might emerge from all the Shadows, will it lead to salvation for the nation or not.
Reservoirs is for those reservoirs that the idiots who claim to know how to run things failed to fill in and re-develop, as Fred looks for the eternal love that eludes him, will he find a partner with a full reservoir of love for him.
The album closes with Sailor one last dark hued tale of despair, despondency at its core, as the tune ever so slowly wends its way down the quayside.
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