Friday, May 13, 2011

Isn't It Strange by Parralox

Well, I just discovered Parralox and I have to share the love.

I didn't literally just discover them, of course. Heck, I bought the mp3 of "Sharper Than a Knife" way back almost exactly two years ago (and even then it wasn't exactly brand new either; it'd been out for the better part of a year.) But for whatever reason, even though I absolutely love that song, I didn't further explore Parralox until just recently, when I acquired their first three albums, Electricity, State of Decay and Metropolis. There's actually a fourth album that came out last February, but it's only about half new and the other half is remixes, so I'm not sure that it really counts.

Parralox is a new band; their debut stuff only came out in 2008, but it's really good stuff. There's a fair bit of retro-80s feel to some of their stuff, mixed with some very advanced and sophisticated newer electronic music influences. They've got a great vocalist. Heck; I told my wife the other day that Parralox, in very general terms at least, is sorta like what Lady Gaga would be like if Lady Gaga concentrated more on developing her talent instead of trying to shock us all the time to get us to pay attention to her. Maybe that's not actually true, but it's close enough. Parralox have also, apparently, gotten into the remixing business, which is interesting, because that's something that you're usually only invited to do if you're musicality as instrument players and producers has really impressed the biz.

My favorite Parralox song is... still... probably "Sharper Than A Knife" but I've got a lot more that are working their way up through the ranks as I get to know them better. "I Heart U" is a great one too that I would have included on this update if I could have found a youtube or dailymotion video of it, but I couldn't and I didn't want to whip one up myself. I included "Isn't It Strange" from their State of Decay CD. Lots of others were contenders, though--as I discover more and more of how deep their work is (surprisingly quite a lot considering their recent vintage; these guys are pretty productive).