Awaiting Abigail is a Dallas five-piece formed in 2024 around a partial reunion of high school classmates Heather Hammonds, James Smith, and Laurie Barnett, who played together in local bands through the late nineties. Rounding out the lineup are keyboardist Kori Tolfa and frontwoman Abigail Hill, a theater arts student whose vocal and stage presence quickly became the band’s defining quality. “Funhouse” is their seventh single, recorded and produced by Alex Gerst at Empire Sound Studios in Carrollton and mixed by three-time Grammy engineer Tom Lord-Alge. The accompanying music video was directed by Marc Coronado of The Crowned Studios.
Musically, you can instantly tell that you are listening to something special. There is a lot of character in every creative decision, and confidence in those decisions. There is a whole minute of a beautifully cinematic intro of strings and guitar melodies before any vocals enter the equation. The verses made me realize something surprising because, as the accompaniment takes a bit of a backseat to create space for the vocals, the strings and the vocals create this almost Amy Winehouse vibe, and I realized there is a lot in common with these very theatrical genres that are ultimately like tragedies about relationships. Worry not, though, because there is plenty of heaviness here once the chorus comes around.
Lyrically, it retains that theatrical and dramatic quality with the idea that being stuck in a relationship with no way out is like being in a maze of false mirrors in the funhouse, constantly enveloped by lies until you can’t really tell what’s real anymore and much like those mazes if you can’t find your way out then you better start breaking down those mirrors to shatter the illusion. In music, there is a symbiotic relationship between melody and lyrics, and I think here both benefit each other greatly, which is what makes this truly stand out.
The music video has already racked up close to 100,000 views on YouTube in under two weeks, which for an independent band with no label behind them is a remarkable number, and it isn’t an accident. There is a genuine hunger out there for music that is crafted with this level of care and theatrical conviction, and when something this well put together finds its way in front of people, they respond. The numbers don’t lie.
