Review Summary: Major Parkinson seek a balance between accessibility and experimentation on this unhinged ride through haunted carnival madness.
Major Parkinson are not an easy band to categorize. It would be reticent to simply describe them as an eclectic progressive rock outfit. Elements of pop, hardcore, americana, cabaret and alternative rock are to be found lurking in their often quite bizarre style of music. On previous outings we were certainly greeted to an explosion of creativity and an unabashed sense of adventure but this time around the Norwegian sextet have injected a healthy extra dose of melody which lends the music a slightly more accessible quality. That's not to say that this is an easy listen by any stretch of the imagination. From the opening bars of 'Skeleton Sangria' it is pretty obvious that this album is going to be an acquired taste. Jon Ivar Kollbotn's deep goth-like vocals plough a furrow through the undulating acoustic guitar and spooky
Danse Macabre strings until this short introductory piece swings into a carousel melody. Things get underway proper with the excellent piano driven alternative rock flavoured 'Impernanence' on which the band come across as a twisted alternate version of Arcade Fire. The song's bleak rhythms build and build on disparate piano melodies to a galloping gothic conclusion.
When the band approach their music in a relatively straightforward fashion (and I use the word 'straightforward' in a very loose sense) the results often breach the realms of accessibility. However, it is when Major Parkinson let out their inner madness that things really get interesting. 'The Wheelbarrow' is a thrilling journey through a maelstrom of frothy delerium, buzzy riffing guitars, prog laced staccato eruptions and atmospheric electronic passages with Kollbotn's insistent vocals riding gutterally over proceedings. Beefier tracks such as the chaotic 'Heart Machine' deliver the goods with menacing hard rock riffing over a bleak landscape of cascading piano melodies and echoed arpeggios. By the time the song has built to its nightmare crescendo you might well be holding your hands over your ears begging for solace. Stay true and boldly venture further on this fairground haunted-house ride and after a spooky ethereal interlude in the form of 'Beaks of Benevola' the tick-tock opening bars of the title track herald your return to the true nightmare landscape. This album closer acts to bring together many of the elements that pervade the music that has come before. Strident guitar hooks and choppy keyboard melodies in the style of early
Sparks provide some comfort among the driving clockwork rhythms, jarring bridges and tortured vocals during this final descent into evil carnival pandemonium.
The inventiveness, bravado and sheer craziness of Major Parkinson on this release is quite stunning at times. A threatening and maliciously gleeful atmosphere pervades the whole album and if you can buy into the madness and descend with the band into their personal nightmare you might well never emerge completely sane. If you can imagine a crew of eternally cursed spectral sailors playing a gig to a crowd of manically grinning circus clowns at a haunted carnival straight out of a child's nightmare this is probably what the music would sound like.
