Adverts
|
Bands CD Reviews Live Reviews Interviews Labels Genres 
Rosary
| |
<< Back |
Releasing your second album some 24 years after debuting is uncommon, so that calls for an explanation. Parade Ground make their first appearance in 1983 with the Moan on the Sly 7". Back then it was a coldwave/synthpop band and gradually they moved towards what was eventually known as EBM. The driving force behind this band are the Belgian brothers Pierre and Jean-Marc Pauly. Over the course of their career they collaborated regularly with Patrick Codenys, the keyboardist of Front 242. Also this time Patrick plays a role, he was responsible for the production and the 'additional sounds'. Rosary is just the second full-lenght album by Parade Ground. The band had a preference for singles and maxis in the 1980's and 1988's Cut Up was their first proper album. After its release the band gradually disappeared from the radar screens. Apart from a contribution to Front 242's 06:21:03:11 Up Evil and some appearances on compilation albums Parade Ground seemed to have vanished. But not for good, as this album shows. Rosary has a specific feature. Every song has its own prelude in the form of tracks called Rosary, numbered I to XV. Combined with the actual songs this album contains 30 tracks and last for over 70 minutes. When regarding the jarring and desolate nature of the album that's quite a long sit. Rosary relies on sound collages and distorted, ongoing industrial-tinged guitars. The detached vocals are sometimes half buried in the noise. There are more aggressive, relentless tracks such as "In the line of fire", "Another week", "Stutter", "Fight time" and "Three faint fires". Some songs sound particularly shrill and metallic like "Snail's burial" and "Immaculate". The hazy "Europe side down" is probably the coldest track on the album, with "Breath" as a good second. The stately "Happy at all" and the instrumental "Calvary" provide for the necessary moments of reflection, although even during these songs your nerves get tested because Rosary is a claustrophobic album. In the course of those nearly five quarters of an hour your mood is seriously impressed. Rosary is not for the weak of heart, it's an album that stirs and disturbs.
0 replies
Discuss this
|
|
|
