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rating : 9 |
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I woke up twice today, hungover and half-drunk. I'm waiting for a boy to call me, not knowing whether he'll do it or not. After last night's alcohol-soaked fun everything looks gray.
I'm listening to A Place for Parks' debut album. It fits my mood. Delicacy is becoming harder to find nowadays. It seems to me that the remnant pieces of it are hidden in music. Since my car's tape player decided to stop playing tapes I've been listening to classical music radio stations. As an attempt to educate myself. This music, when it's fragile and delicate, moves me.
So, I guess this is what they call post-rock. In this album, unlike most of the records of the genre, the tension is built slowly, serenely and explosions, when they happen, never sound superfluous. There is not one weak track in the album. Open all the Windows is the record's dark opener, dragging us deep down into the The Bright Period's mysterious atmosphere. Our Screwball Concerto is a piano-driven funeral oration and Apparently Empty Room suddenly accelerates and explodes, à la you-know-who, shaking the walls built during the two first tracks. The obscure and short He Meant the Words follows. Hidden Landscapes shows the band's undeniable skill. A trombone and a clarinet join the band on the way, making it sound like a tired marching band, mourning the days that passed. The first piano chords of Tide Water are incredibly moving, the song closes the album in a beautiful, ethereal way, slowly fading in and out.
What strikes me the most is the humble delicacy of the compositions and the arrangements. A Place for Parks succeed in sounding mature and fragile, never too confident and always steady. This sad, beautiful record is very probably the last great album you'll listen to this year.
-Barbara H
/dec 15th 2002/