Child Abuse: Heralds of a New Sound (2010)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Venue: Klub Gromka, Ljubljana
Concert date: 03.01.2010
Attendance: 0

Metelkova keeps feeding us musical adventures that are anything but ordinary, and it’s exactly those off-kilter moments that I, as a gig-goer, look forward to. This time, some unusual experimental rockers from Brooklyn paid us a visit. They’re not content with just borrowing from established musical sources; they try to cultivate their own approach to rock music, which some will find more successful and others less so. I fall into the first camp, since I’m always looking for a different sound, not just a copy of something already heard, but an attempt at building an identity of one’s own.

Child Abuse undoubtedly belong among the new-sound scientists, since there’s little they wouldn’t dare to throw into their songs. The crowd was open to their escapades too, as the mood was still festive and people were mostly in good spirits. I just hope the Americans weren’t thrown off by the cries of “fuck off” from one or several individuals, but it was meant in good fun, since in Slovenia the usual rule is to say exactly the opposite of what you actually mean. I think the Americans could tell from the atmosphere that it was only a joke and that nobody really wanted to chase them off. Anyway, even though it was the first night of their European tour, the guys made it clear from the very start that there’d be no messing around. They raced through the notes like a TGV and showed off an impressive amount of technical skill. They didn’t let up afterwards either, bombarding us nonstop with aggressive, wild music that was nowhere near chaotic, because beneath all the noise and speed lies a great deal of organization and songwriting ability.

Sonically, the show reminded me a lot of their Croatian partners in crime when it comes to making sonic rockets, Tigrova Mast. The difference is that Tigrova Mast mix more punk into their experimental rock, while Child Abuse lean much more on metal elements, specifically grindcore. That’s especially noticeable in the screaming vocals and the extremely technical parts, where a mini Casio keyboard and a heavy bass tone take the place of buzzsaw guitars. But the effect is exactly the same, with no less testosterone than if you were listening to guitars. Brutal, raw and unhinged, just as grindcore should be. Still, with Child Abuse it’s not only about that. They know how to enrich those metal elements with touches of jazz, progressive rock and whatever else, and in the end all you can do is scratch your head and wonder what exactly you just listened to. If I said they play progressive music, I wouldn’t be far off, but anyone looking for kinship with the sound of the seventies won’t find much, maybe just the occasional wink at King Crimson (specifically the Red era), but this is more about a desire to break free of musical limitations. The guys are simply riding the wave of the future of progressive music.

The Americans really do impress you, even though they played for only an hour, and in that hour they show more than many bands do in three. Technically outstanding, compositionally polished, and still with enough room for improvisation to let the songs breathe more freely. Sonically they’re really something special: the bass tone can be extremely powerful and heavy, but it can also be quite jazzy. Both the bassist and the keyboardist use a pile of effects triggered with their feet, giving us a little sea of different sound combinations. At first glance the keyboardist looks funny, hiding behind a mini Casio synth that looks better suited to a kids’ party than a concert, but he coaxes such demonic sounds out of it, and Luke Calzonetti is so skilled on it that you can hardly believe what he manages to pull off on such a tiny surface. The sound picture is rounded out by an excellent drummer, who impressed with both the more metal tricks and the more rock and jazz ones. The guys really are top-notch musicians and leave nothing to chance.

Child Abuse transcend the parameters of the genres they fold into their creations and cook up concoctions of their own that would be hard to call anything but progressive, because they constantly strive to destroy typical patterns and established standards. With their show at Gromka they won me over to their mission, and probably plenty of others who were at the event too. These are the bands that embody the spirit of progressive music, and nowadays it really is the case that you usually find them on smaller stages, as was the case this time too.

Photos: Rok Podgrajšek