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Issue
#73
Apr. ‘05
Maybe the most you can
ask from a band is that they do not stagnate. That
they grow and reach to attain more. That they give you a sense of
progression. After all,
life and the world evolve constantly; growth and change are needed to
survive. Are you the
same person you were 3 years ago? While most likely you are still you,
things about your
make-up have molted into something else, something more, for it is an
inevitable part of
being. Without the constant, necessary transitions, we would be stuck
in one point of
time. And that is what ultimately leads to the demise of countless
musical artists. When a
band allows themselves to stay in one place album after album their fan
base outgrows
them, and where many think that the next wave of fans will discover
them, they forget that
those fans will have another perspective altogether. If a band wishes
to retain their
original fan base from their original beginnings they must grow and
reach to attain more,
and this simple progression, which should mirror the progression of
life and the world,
will not only allow them to keep their original fan base (as well as
their original selves
– after all, like an individual human being a band can still
be the same band, but
molt into something else, something more as well), but also allow them
to expand their fan
base to not only the next wave, but perhaps even to those further ahead
or even behind the
curve.
Parker
from Sweden
has just
released their 3rd LP, Grandessa
Tissen.
It shows that Parker has grown and
progressed
like no other band in recent memory. I would have to reach back to the
early nineties to
find another band that did what Parker
is doing
now, but my parallels reach further back than that, mainly because of
the genre that Parker has so
masterfully made their own. I find
the parallel of the original New Wave movement of 78-82 to offer the
most fitting
comparison. Where that time of musical upheaval and redefinition saw
its fair share of
bands that exploded upon the scene and quickly faded into obscurity due
to their lack of
growth, it also gave birth to many artists who grew and commandeered
that generation
onwards into the future with a constant progression of change, without
losing sight of
their origin. All that is on display here. With Grandessa
Tissen, Parker releases
everything that
made their 1st album, 2002’s Delusions Of
Granduer (AderPale),
one of the best debut LPs ever
(especially in the New Wave genre), (and the 2002 IndepenDisc
of the Year), takes the lessons learned from applying growth
in the accomplished (if
slightly awkward) sophomore offering Le Petomane, and leaps forward
about 6 albums
worth of growth to deliver a CD that I can honestly proclaim makes Paker one of the greatest New Wave bands
two
decades out.
One of the amazing
things about Parker
is that every song deals with relationships. Album after album, song
after song, and yet
it never tires or bores us. Grandessa Tissen
is
10 more tunes of every type of relationship that can be squeezed into
37:00 minutes of
Ramones inspired bubble-gum punk, married to New Wave synth-pop
structures, with actual
bridges that carry sing-a-long infused power-pop recalling every girl
fronted group from
Blondie to the Go-Go’s with nods to Lene Lovich, Kate Bush
and countless other voices
that staked their claim and placed their stamp on the genre as well.
Opening the disc with a
3 chord solo organ, It Should Have
Been Me sets a ceremonial homage feel
while Eva Parker’s solemn,
repressed vocal delivers a straight read, only hinting at the sexual
force we are about to
experience as Carlos and Klaus Parker explode the New Wave re-imagined
into our ears and
straight down to our feet. Get up! Dance! Pogo to your
heart’s delight to the
heartbreak of a dumped lover. And with the drums pounding, and guitar
shredding, we are
led directly into Gonna Kill That Man
(the disc includes an
animated video of this song that becomes the essence and focal point of
the Disc –
i.e. cover and booklet art). Acting as part 2 in the scorned lover
story line, Parker powers forward
with Punk attitude in a
tale of reckless retribution that flirts with a Thomas Dolby influence
that becomes even
more prominent in Fly
Me To The Moon. The longest song here, it
clocks in at 5:24
and takes on epic proportions. It’s a sonic achievement with
heavy
guitar a la` Echo & The Bunnymen that uses a synth take that
not only echo’s
Thomas Dolby, but also makes an impact that Gary Numan and The Tubeway
Army would be
extremely proud of. Parker has
obviously
swallowed the entire 78-82 scene and culture and is spitting them back
out as compositions
with New Wave Hall of Fame accuracy. The synth and bass breakdown is
classic jam infested
uberpop howling with uncanny dance-a-tude.
That same dance-a-tude
carries into Rainy
Thursday
Night, which starts extra Funky, and just trapezes
off into a tale of lust and
exhibitionist sex. Randy and deliberate, Eva delivers with the
intensity of a woman whose
world is saved through make-up sex: “Here
and
now outside / I can’t wait and I don’t care / I
hope my neighbours stay inside /
I hope that they don’t stare.” Because,
Damn it’s good, even in the
rain – if fact, when the snare solo acts as the rain and
carries us over the bridge
that has the bass run swimming underneath – WOW! We get it,
we really get it.
Hitting the midway
point, Parker
unleashes the epitome of a New Wave pop single. Boy In Between sports a catchy,
jingly refrain
that could top the charts. Marrying spy surf with beach blanket bingo,
the song sweeps us
along the bedroom floor of a woman using what she has to get what she
needs until she can
find what she wants. Eva’s voice adds a sexiness that matches
the climbing electric
piano chords, hooking us with a twee vocal reminiscent of Berlin’s
Terri Nunn and
advancing to a refined tone that channels a Marlyn Monroe style
erotica. And like the
unsuspecting boyfriend, the song will have you coming back for more,
time and time
again…
The 2nd
half of this disc continues along the same vein,
pumping us full of feisty, fun sexual innuendo, slipped into
sing-a-long choruses (witness Bobby
B’s
“Oh Bobby B / won’t you be
my cup of tea
/ I’m your sugar / I’m your sugar”)
and short, fast musical pounding
romps - Faster,
Longer, Higher takes the Pogo & Robot
crowd and throws them into the mosh pit.
It’s a beat-it-down, mad and angry farfisa assault that makes
you win in a dance of
determination – and the conviction of the amazing growth Parker has succeeded in chronicling. Loser echos
out a searing/ringing/drenching guitar attacking relationships through
the eyes of the
dumped that captures the essence of which Parker’s
songwriting has evolved from and into, including everything from the
start which has been
built into a pyramid of sound, always reaching forward, but never
losing itself in the
progression.
Probably the most
evident example of this is how each and every one of
these 10 songs offer up another piece of the whole picture. As with
life and art, the
growth and progression rely on all that comes before and after, and
when each piece can
interlock and fit together to form one in it’s entirety, then
it is almost a crime to
leave a piece or two off to the side. I Know You’re Not The One
is a song not to
be missed. Again, Eva’s vocals give us a celebration that
bounces us to the beat of
sunshine after the rain, of rain after the sunshine. A tale of a
loser/slacker who she
realizes will only bring her grief and pain (and the musical interludes
bear this out with
solemn earnestness) until the bouncy, joyous chorus, where she idolizes
her time with him,
and delivers us to the door of indecision via a peppy, over-the-top
type organ that rips
the final chords straight from ABBA-land. Appropriately using the CDs
only (semi)ballad to
close, Parker finalizes their
maturation.
Drawing from a drum program that works back and forth with The
Cars’ Greg
Hawkes’ style of keyboards, The Colour Of Your Heart could
be extracted
from Blondie’s Eat To The Beat LP and set down with the early
techno trapping of
Suicide. Eva’s vocals blend in and out and reach heights that
warm and chill
simultaneously as the electro-techno-synth beat bears the progression
up and over and out
in a floating, spacey, trance-like dance that is all too fitting as a
fade out of one of
the most desirable album offerings since the inception of New Wave
music.
If anything, Parker is the
modern representation that New Wave music hasn’t stagnated.
This isn’t a
resurrection of a dead genre, this is a progression. This is growth and
change.
This is the most we can
ask from a band.
And Parker has answered.
The answer is Grandessa Tissen.
Grandessa Tissen by Parker
"Imported
from Sweden"
available now for
$7.98 +
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