I'm going to take this opportunity to start reviewing the first total curveball band I feel comfortable enough to review at this point in my review-writing "career" for two reasons: 1) I need to work on my writing chops for bands that I've only discovered within the last few years instead of half my life ago, and 2) I've listened to hundreds upon hundreds of bands and artists I've never listened to before between the end of college and now (2011 - 2017) and Major Parkinson is one of the only, if not perhaps the only, band that has hit the sweet spot in precisely the same way all those bands I started to love in my formative high school years did, so it's a good one to start with.
I call Major Parkinson a "curveball band" because you've never fucking heard of them, and it's unlikely that you'll find a wealth of critical analyses, professional or amateur, or even written in English, about any of their albums on the internet (especially any as well-thought out and eloquent as mine will be, of course). So if you're even mildly interested enough in these curveball bands that I'll review from time to time that even my shitty opinions or painfully labyrinthine writing style aren't sufficiently enough to deter you away now and forever, then please continue Gentle Reader and you will be unjustly not at all rewarded for any efforts on your part.
Major Parkinson is a band from Norway that has undergone many personnel changes since their formation in 2003, but at the time of their debut the lineup was Jon Ivar Kollbotn on vocals, André Lund and Alf Borge on guitar, Eivind Gammersvik on bass, Lars Christian Bjørknes on synthesizers, and Cato Olaisen on drums. The most accurate general description I have for Major Parkinson is "alternative rock", but not in a Red Hot Chili Peppers or a Smashing Pumpkins way at all. Major Parkinson, like all underrated gems, defy easy classification, especially since they have tended to switch things up from album to album thus far. Think Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones-era vocals with a lot of jangly, abrasive ska-punk beats, old-timey carnival melodies, occasional other-worldly, atmospheric Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson proggy and prog-metally gleanings, and even that doesn't scratch the surface of their very distinct sound that culls from literally every musical style you can think of.
But forget what I just said for now, because Major Parkinson's self-titled album debut lacks the vastness and diversity that would come later. It's an album by a band very much still finding its footing, but while I would describe it as "stripped down" it's incredible to my ears how much this band sounds unlike anyone else utilizing only the basic rock instrumentation. You can tell that each member of the band is thoroughly competent, almost exasperatingly so, with the way they can fluidly bend genres and weave in and out of complicated time signatures with grace. You know how certain prog and math rock can sometimes sound so jagged that transitions seem clumsy and uninspired? Almost as if that shit is completely unintentional but they're playing off like it's "just the way our challenging music is, dude, no way around it". Major Parkinson has a knack for being able to phrase out four measures of music so adequately that you yourself, the listening audience, will end up subconsciously relieved that this is exactly the way those four measures went. I'm going to read this paragraph in the morning and see if it still makes a lick of goddamn sense.
Yep, sure does! No editing there! Anyway, the bottom line is that the merging of listenability with unabashed weirdness is impressive, because that's not very easy to pull off (if intentional, of course. A band like Mr. Bungle would be offended to have their work mistaken as "listenable"). Major Parkinson is a record loaded with hooks and a focus on melody, of all things. What nerve, right? So many of these bands that try to put on the circus-punk vibe deliberately sacrifice anything that could be construed as catchy pop-sensibility in favor of deliberately inaccessible musical strangeness. Which I love, actually. Why am I complaining? Oh yeah, because deliberately inaccessible musical strangeness is fucking easy. Props to Major Parkinson for going the harder route.
OK, so Major Parkinson, the album, by Major Parkinson, the band, (italics!) isn't as refined as later efforts, but let's pretend that when this album came out in 2008 the later albums weren't available yet. Let's pretend really hard, ok? Now we have nothing to compare it to but itself! Fantastic!
NOTE: While the band is Norwegian, Kollbotn sings entirely in English, and they have a pretty good vocabulary and a moderate grasp on metaphors and idioms. That being said, the lyrics on the debut are atrocious and make no fucking sense. I'll cull some examples from three musically top-notch tracks:
- "Bicycle!" - "A radical sensation, my body is on the air/My face is pretty ugly, I see it everywhere/My mind is separated for better and for worse/It’s living in my stomach, I’m a lipstick in a purse".
- "Sanity Fair" - "But when did this obscene insanity become such a sophisticated topic to discuss for us?/When all that I wanted from the dirty Cinderella to uncover my expenses for the purple bus".
- "I Am Erica" - "I met a little girl on the marketplace/Born without a proper face/Made to fill that magical sensation/A lovely voice like a radio/Talking in a lavatory disarray/Jacuzzi conversation flow/It was the summer of 187".
Three great songs with just shit turd lyrics that either show a fundamental misunderstanding of English or are obtuse-on-purpose for, I don't know, art's sake? Probably the latter, but being Norwegian isn't helping them much in this case. I don't even want to try analyzing the meaning of the songs, I doubt I'd get anywhere.
But that's ok, since the music itself is so dang tasty that I'm not listening to the lyrics anyway. I mean, no kidding, I never paid attention to them until I started writing this review, that's how little they matter. Things start off proper with the aforementioned "Bicycle!", which begins innocuously enough with a cute, catchy, normal by most standards, fast-tempo major key lush surf rock introduction. On a dime, though, creepy punk-cabaret staccato minor key guitar takes over and sharply punctuates the eternity of dead air between each note. Now this makes it sound like things change vastly within the course of 20 seconds, but not really. Trust me. And if your average experimental/avant-garde metal band made this song it's likely that the initial surf music wouldn't get a reprise, but Major Parkinson understands the oh-so gratifying concept of the musical reprise and brings the surf back during the choruses.
Most of the other sounds follow this same thread of melodious offerings with satisfying musical callbacks. Other noteworthy songs include my personal favorite, the ultra-paranoid ska-from-Hell "It's a Job", which actually has an understandable narrative and clever lyrics about murder and what it takes to get away with it. Kollbotn really goes all in on this one, you can practically hear the guy sweating as he desperately pants through some of the verses. There are also cool watery guitar effects during the interludes! "Meat Me in the Disco" will stick in your head for days, and features some deranged female vocals that I can't find a credit for unfortunately. "Casanova" is the closest the band comes to balladry, and it's actually a very pretty little song. Even the vocals are toned down, but near the end Kollbotn can't help but belt it out like a down-on-his-luck Cookie Monster. "I Am Erica" features flourishes of middle eastern sitar (real or synthesized, I'm not sure), which I think is nifty keen!
Some low points on the album aren't low because they're sub-par, per se, but low because a lot of the album is a bit same-y and these songs don't particularly stand out. Among them, "Bazooka Mirror", "Silicon Hips" and "197" are a tad interchangeable, but packed with hooks like any other Major Parkinson product that most bands would kill for. "Death in the Candystore" appears to be their hit from the album, but meh. Generic on the progression to my ears, and the energy is a little lackluster for the punk vibe the record is going for. And then by the time you get to the last two songs, "Awkward as a Drunk" and "Greatest Love", don't be too surprised if you're quite tapped out by the style.
The sheer uniqueness and originality of the band bumps their debut a couple of notches for me, because when all is said and done, Major Parkinson is a nothing group of Norwegian nobodys who will never, ever break out into the mainstream. This should have really be a flash-in-the-pan freak event that everyone is alarmed by and forgets about a week later, and certainly nothing someone like me should have ever known about. But, as it stands, they kept on going, they made more albums, they got better over time, and Major Parkinson is a solid album that the band can look back on without the need for rose-tinted glasses. Most bands don't have that luxury. Go ahead and give it a listen one day.
But that's ok, since the music itself is so dang tasty that I'm not listening to the lyrics anyway. I mean, no kidding, I never paid attention to them until I started writing this review, that's how little they matter. Things start off proper with the aforementioned "Bicycle!", which begins innocuously enough with a cute, catchy, normal by most standards, fast-tempo major key lush surf rock introduction. On a dime, though, creepy punk-cabaret staccato minor key guitar takes over and sharply punctuates the eternity of dead air between each note. Now this makes it sound like things change vastly within the course of 20 seconds, but not really. Trust me. And if your average experimental/avant-garde metal band made this song it's likely that the initial surf music wouldn't get a reprise, but Major Parkinson understands the oh-so gratifying concept of the musical reprise and brings the surf back during the choruses.
Most of the other sounds follow this same thread of melodious offerings with satisfying musical callbacks. Other noteworthy songs include my personal favorite, the ultra-paranoid ska-from-Hell "It's a Job", which actually has an understandable narrative and clever lyrics about murder and what it takes to get away with it. Kollbotn really goes all in on this one, you can practically hear the guy sweating as he desperately pants through some of the verses. There are also cool watery guitar effects during the interludes! "Meat Me in the Disco" will stick in your head for days, and features some deranged female vocals that I can't find a credit for unfortunately. "Casanova" is the closest the band comes to balladry, and it's actually a very pretty little song. Even the vocals are toned down, but near the end Kollbotn can't help but belt it out like a down-on-his-luck Cookie Monster. "I Am Erica" features flourishes of middle eastern sitar (real or synthesized, I'm not sure), which I think is nifty keen!
Some low points on the album aren't low because they're sub-par, per se, but low because a lot of the album is a bit same-y and these songs don't particularly stand out. Among them, "Bazooka Mirror", "Silicon Hips" and "197" are a tad interchangeable, but packed with hooks like any other Major Parkinson product that most bands would kill for. "Death in the Candystore" appears to be their hit from the album, but meh. Generic on the progression to my ears, and the energy is a little lackluster for the punk vibe the record is going for. And then by the time you get to the last two songs, "Awkward as a Drunk" and "Greatest Love", don't be too surprised if you're quite tapped out by the style.
The sheer uniqueness and originality of the band bumps their debut a couple of notches for me, because when all is said and done, Major Parkinson is a nothing group of Norwegian nobodys who will never, ever break out into the mainstream. This should have really be a flash-in-the-pan freak event that everyone is alarmed by and forgets about a week later, and certainly nothing someone like me should have ever known about. But, as it stands, they kept on going, they made more albums, they got better over time, and Major Parkinson is a solid album that the band can look back on without the need for rose-tinted glasses. Most bands don't have that luxury. Go ahead and give it a listen one day.
GOOD
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