I'm proud to say that I did
absolutely nothing yesterday but play Xbox 360, eat, and listen to today's
artist, Parade, and their recently released EP, Answer Me. Many
of you were probably infinitely more productive, but I highly doubt you had
an abundance of video games and five glorious tracks of energetic indie pop
keeping you tethered to the couch, so I don't blame you for your
overachieving ways. Anyway, Parade is an Atlanta-based project that
features: Carrie Hodge (Vocals, Keyboards Bass), Jason Chamison (Drums),
Emily Martin (Bass, Keyboards) and Scott Trinh (Guitar), and they have a
wonderful tendency to effectively mash up various pop genres in a way
that makes their every sound completely infectious. Enjoy.
:Parade
- That's Hott:
It's songs like this that remind me why I named the blog after my
appreciation for the first track on an album. I think it's so critical
to get the listener off to a good start and this gem's equal mix of catchy
guitar work, upbeat drumming, well placed hand claps, playful keyboards and
fuzzy vocals is exactly how it should be done. It really gives you a
lot to love while you sit back and have a good time picking out the various
influences. Why can't more pop bands mix it up this well?
:Parade
- Booths:
There's a lot of raw energy in each of the EP's five tracks, but I find that
this is the one in which it stands out the most. It has no joyous
complexity that skips along and entertains at every corner. No, this
is driven by moody guitars, simplistic drumming and Carrie, who does a
stellar job in making this song into the tension packed effort that it is.
Though, I suppose that lyrics like: "I want to eat you alive/I want to make
you cry" don't exactly hurt any attempts to tone down the sunshine a bit.
On a grindhouse related side note, I recently watched an Italian Western
called The Great Silence. It was about a mute gunman who earns a
living by killing bounty hunters that have been needlessly eliminating their
captors in order to accumulate more reward money. Supposedly, it's
loosely based on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, but I don't really know how
much so. I just know that it was an amazingly cool flick. Pick
it up if you can, especially so that you can see one of the better villains
ever in Klaus Kinski's character, Loco.
-
John Laird -
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