The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. I’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
Picture Parlour’s debut long-player was a long time coming.
The London-based rockers’ first album has been anticipated since at least 2023.1 Back then, hype over their live performances and early singles landed them on the cover of NME. The sudden attention led to odious “industry plant” allegations against duo Katherine Parlour and Ella Risi.2 Still, Picture Parlour persisted. A couple of years, a few singles, and an EP later, and The Parlour is finally here. The album looks and sounds like it could be at least a couple of decades older, and that’s generally a good thing.
The nearly eponymous The Parlour‘s album cover depicts Parlour handing off a red suitcase to Risi. Both women are wearing suits. Behind them are severe-looking signs of industry. Above them looms an ominous sky marbled in shades of gray. It’s an image that’s equal parts Wish You Were Here and Who’s Next. It’s a nod to classic rock you’d expect from a band that titled its first single “Norwegian Wood,” but it’s not indicative of what to expect from the album. While the photo is a ’70s pastiche, The Parlour‘s sound seems straight out of 2006. If that year doesn’t immediately conjure a sound for you, think of the albums that signify the beginning of bloat for the ultra-cool rockers who found some radio success at the turn of the century. Try to conjure up some of the bands that eked out hits while coasting on more prestigious coattails, too. Remembering boundary-pushing or cutting-edge releases from that time is unnecessary for understanding what this album is going for.
While that description isn’t exceptionally flattering, it’s an era of rock music that I have a ton of fondness for, and it includes a lot of good, or at least fairly fun, albums. LPs like Get Behind Me Satan by the White Stripes, First Impressions of Earth by the Strokes, You Could Have It So Much Better by Franz Ferdinand, Lullabies to Paralyze by Queens of the Stone Age, Black Holes and Revelations by Muse and Wolfmother’s self-titled album are The Parlour‘s brethren. Some of those albums are remembered very fondly, and others aren’t well-regarded at all, but each of those albums features at least some time dedicated to swaggering rock.3 The Parlour, especially in its faster-paced first half, excels at that.
Picture Parlour starts off the album with a three-song run that’s about as propulsive as any trio of tracks released this year. “Cielo Drive” opens with wailing feedback that sounds like the world’s largest and rustiest gate slowly opening before hitting a purposeful stride that leads to guitar solos. “24 Hr Open,” with its heaving breaths of electric-outlined noise, is a heavily indebted to Jack White stomper. “Who’s There To Love Without You?” is a driving number with widdly-wah flair that melts down multiple types of cheese to make one indulgent treat. Risi can shred, and Parlour has a raspy, forceful voice that’s just right for rock vocals. The latter is especially helpful for preventing overanalysis of lyrics like “I got family issues that run deeper than the curtains.”
The rest of the album isn’t a total write-off, but it rarely captures the fun of its first few songs. “Talk About It” gets high marks for incorporating a super upbeat New Wave influence that’s not present anywhere else on the album. “$4 Fantasy” manages the impressive feat of sounding operatically sleazy without offering much lyrical detail about what specific acts of hedonism can be had for $4. In light of inflation, this is probably solid future-proofing. By the time “The Travelling Show,” a slow-burning rocker in the mode of “Don’t Let Me Explode” by the Hold Steady, brings the album to a close, a reasonably fun time has been had.
It’s unfortunate that after years of hype and obnoxiously toxic discourse, Picture Parlour’s first album landed in the same year as The Clearing by Wolf Alice and From the Pyre by the Last Dinner Party. Both of those albums are bigger, slightly better takes on retro-rock’n’roll theatrics by femme-fronted bands from England. Those two LPs ensure that even if The Parlour didn’t limp a little toward the end, it would likely feel a bit like diminishing returns. However, its first 11 minutes will be overrepresented on my running playlist for a long time.4 In 20 years, it will be a fun-but-flawed album that took time to rock. Those are worth remembering, too.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
The Kids In The Hall, Season Four, Episode Twelve
“Did you mean to call another number but by mistake you called this number again?”
“Oh my god, Raj, my life’s a disaster, I got up twenty seconds ago.”
It’s insane that these guys have multiple completely distinct female personas and so many of them pass.
“Your showers take three to four hours minimum, I have to pee in the kitchen sink.”
“If any of my friends want to know where I am, I’m in the battered women’s shelter, okay?”
This feels like a less helpful observation than usual but there are a lot of sketches about the most boring comic foil having to deal with a complete weirdo who won’t stop yapping about something banal, like the shoeshiner sketch.
“My hands are sad.”
“Monkeys are loose.”
“If I don’t get a pizza here in ten minutes, I’m letting the monkeys loose!”
“Oh, but if you’re someone who owns every album Meatloaf ever made, I’m your sexy little “Bat Out Of Hell”.”
“I think spending the rest of your life alone is sexy. Don’t you?”
“I spilled Husk Musk on my science project and got an A.”
The Practice, “Hammerhead Sharks” – The odds against them, and everyone well aware of the law firm that gave the world Plan B and Jimmy the Grunt, our heroes (specifically Lyndsey) pull a Perry Mason and discover who committed the murder in a dramatic turn of events in the courtroom. Several things make this one really flow: Jimmy’s calm and yet sarcastic grilling of the detective who cracked the case, a man who treated Jimmy badly and got what was coming; the attempt to explore the seedy world of internet sex chatrooms without casting too many aspersions on some pretty outre kinks (the defendant meant the victim in one such room); David E. Kelley, not a mystery writer, does a pretty good job putting on his Earle Stanley Gardner hat here; and Kelley sticks with a major rule of the show: judges can be assholes, but they must be at least somewhat competent. As much as Anthony Heald in his judicial robes is a prick, when the facts of the case cannot be ignored, he follows the law and not his own dislike of our crew. All that said, I do wonder if ever in real life did a witness break down on the stand and confess (or, in this case, plead the Fifth).
The Avengers, “A Sense of History” – I can’t entirely blame the show for me being tired enough to sleep through a chunk of this, but this one was definitely dull as well as nonsensical. Someone has a history professor killed to prevent the European Community from saving the world, I think, and Steed and Peel investigate a bunch of grad students. Makes no sense, but at least Peel dressed for a costume party as Robin Hood is eye-catching. (And somewhere in the crowd is Jacqueline Pearce, known a generation later as the big bad on Blake’s Seven.)
Soul Kitchen – continued adventures in food / chef movies. This one is a German film from 2009, directed by Fatih Akin of Head-On fame. It’s formulaic and unsubtle but also a charming crowd-pleaser, so it left me extremely satisfied even if I’m not sure I’d describe it as a fully good movie – it’s not entirely predictable but it does hit a lot of very familiar beats. But at the same time, it has some fun characters and ideas, like the protagonist struggling with a back injury for most of the film which leads to some good, painful physical comedy. Udo Kier turns up as a sinister rich guy which is fun casting, also the soundtrack is pretty great. There isn’t THAT much food stuff in it really, it’s more just about getting a ramshackle gang together to save a restaurant in a slightly live-action Muppets kinda way, but I had a lot of fun with it.
What did we listen to?
Got halfway through Blank Check on Buster Scruggs and decided that whenever we get Netflix again, I will finally watch the movie and then come back. And then started their discussion of things related in some way or another to Macbeth, which I was already spoiled for long ago. (And now I have to decide if I have time for another podcast since Dana Schwartz’s series on hoaxes sounds great.)
1001 Albums, etc. – too busy to make much progress last week but I blasted through a few yesterday.
Madness – The Rise and Fall: a little disappointing, Madness have some singles that I really like so I hoped to enjoy the album but it fell a little flat. The book calls this their “most experimental” album which always feels like slightly redundant information if it’s the only one they’re including on the list. I don’t have time for independent study, I’m working through a list of 1001 albums!
Donald Fagen – The Nightfly: this delivers in most of the same ways as Steely Dan – pristine production, stacked harmonies – but felt a little more sterile to me. I can see why it’s a classic “test your high-end hi-fi” album for audiophiles but I feel like that’s the only area where it really excels.
Haircut 100 – Pelican West: only really knew one song by these guys but this was a pleasant surprise, a good mix of “sophisticated” pop sounds and some quirkier humour (including some excellently odd song titles).
Kate Bush – The Dreaming: like with Madness, the book has jumped straight into a more experimental album with Kate Bush and I think I’d be better off starting with one of the earlier or later albums that feature some of the great singles to ease me in. I admired how full-on this was but it’s also quite abrasively odd and I don’t really feel like I got fully into it on my first listen.
Orange Juice – Rip it Up: heard this before and liked it, enjoyed it even more this time around. Edwyn Collins’ croon isn’t my favourite vocal style but it’s growing on me, and the music here is a nice mix of jangly post-punk and some less obvious influences including embracing the African sounds brought in by their Zimbabwean drummer.
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Screen Drafts, Paul Verhoeven – I’m several hours into this and having a great time, he has so many great films and ranking them is proving extremely difficult for this trio with slightly different tastes. I expected the one I hadn’t seen (“Tricked”) to end up very low but it did well enough to make me think I should check it out at some point. I am not as on board with the Showgirls reclamation project as at least two of these drafters.
I find Haircut 100 fascinating; some of their music sounds like what I imagine Talking Heads would sound like if David Byrne didn’t go to art school in New York but was raided on a yacht instead.
Haha yes, that’s a great way to put it. I love Talking Heads obviously but David Byrne can definitely be a little exhausting.
Mostly music from this year as I try to figure out the end-of-year article, which has been complicated a bit by a few late-breaking entries I heard over the weekend that may make it on the list. I’m trying not to go mad from figuring all of this out.
Year of the Month update!
This December, we’ll be taking pitches on anything from 1948, like these movies, albums, and books.
Dec. 18th: Tristan J. Nankervis: Rope
Dec. 20th: Lauren James: The Lottery
Here’s how we’re wrapping up this month:
Nov. 28th: Gillian Nelson: Legend of the Three Caballeros
And here’s the movies, albums, books, TV, and games from 1985 for you to write about next January.
Jan. 2nd: Gillian Nelson: Return to Oz
Jan. 9th: Gillian Nelson: Advice on Lice
Jan. 16th: Gillian Nelson: The Wuzzles/The Gummi Bears
Jan. 23rd: Gillian Nelson: The Golden Girls
I’ll take Rambo: First Blood Part II for January 5th and The Breakfast Club for January 19th, please!
I just noticed this says “The Clearing from Wolf Alice and From the Pyre by Wolf Alice”– the latter is The Last Dinner Party.
It sure is! Fixed!