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| Brothers Alex and Thomas White |
While I'm certain you've suffered from my inexcusable absence in posting album reviews, I'm happy to report that I've been listening to a lot of new music. Spotify has really opened up my ears, and one album I came across was No Need To Be Downhearted by The Electric Soft Parade. Sometimes I get excited about a new album and post a review before really having a chance to listen to it. In this case, I've been wanting to blog about this band since August.
Considering it's nearly December, you'd think I would've had plenty of time to soak up this album and get my opinion ironed out. But I still haven't wrapped my head around it. This band is hard to pin down. Influences have to include the Beatles and ELO, but I can't really say they sound like either band. Their songs have a lot of range in the rock and pop world, and even within a single song the styles will mingle. Other times they remind me of Grandaddy and The Dandy Warhols on Thirteen Tales.
Natives of Brighton, England, the core of The Electric Soft Parade is brothers Alex and Thomas White. Their debut appeared in 2002, and the album No Need To Be Downhearted was released in 2007. Other than an EP released this year, the band has been idle. No Need To Be Downhearted was recorded in a mobile recording studio by the band themselves for under $1,000. This is pretty amazing considering the sound quality and sonic touches on this album. Of course, my take on it is contrary to this writeup on Wikipedia:
"Unlike previous releases, the album was self-produced and recorded entirely digitally, using a demo version of ProTools,
lending the album a hard, brittle sound. Compared to the relatively
restrained arrangement and mix of earlier work, the album is richly
layered - at times cluttered and busy - a result of the bands' trademark
'loose over-dubbing' (a technique whereby any given melody is partly or
wholly improvised, then double-tracked approximately, often giving the
track in question a slightly out-of-focus, seasick quality). The LP also
features wide use of sampled Mellotron and MIDI
percussion, mostly filtered through heavy reverb and compression. On
release, reviewers also noted the synth-like sounds on many tracks. In
fact, a large portion of the guitars on the album were DI'd (plugging
the guitar lead directly into the desk rather than mic'ing an
amplifier). The gain on the channel would then be turned up full,
resulting in a saturated, squarewave-like tone."
Not sure what hard, brittle sound this reviewer is talking about. There are some intentional lo-fi effects, but overall it's clear that this band knows exactly what they're doing in the recording and mixing process, and I'm certainly a fan.
I'm hoping the 'ESP' releases another album sometime. It would be a shame if this was their final LP. The songs Life In The Backseat, Shore Song Surfacing and Cold World Starry Nite #1 are just a few on this album that are worth a listen. To download a zip file containing the tracks, click here and then click on the green "Download" bar.
My Rating__8 out of 10 Headphones__9 out of 10
2 comments:
Album is good...But might be worst name of a Band EVER. You should send them my list. They sound more like the should be called either, The Pink Parts or Cat Fart maybe even Mr. Fungus.
I like Mr. Fungas. That's going to my next band.
I read that they were going to be The Soft Parade from the Doors song, but there was already a cover band with that name in the states.
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