The album opens with “Respire,”
a short and strangely pretty instrumental track. It leads directly into the
second track, “Gun Shy,” a mellow and intriguing song, the acoustic guitar
prominent in the mix, but with strings behind it giving the song a gorgeous,
almost angelic quality. This song builds in intensity toward the end,
particularly in the vocal delivery. “When
we pour out the venom we’ve known/Crawl out, can’t undermine, can’t fall in
line/We’d fall apart/Fully, fully loaded, fully empty of all heart.” How
about those lyrics? This album is really a thing of beauty, though that beauty
has a somber element at its base. Take “All It Was” for example, which seems to
rise from the ground as it moves, as if to lift us too, yet asks “Is that all it was?” Check out these
lines: “Caught between your rules/Cling
to virtue, only you cannot believe/That you’re all that if you’re caught too.”
“Don’t Mind” has a more
cheerful, upbeat vibe from its start. “Strong
words, few deeds/Tell me what a friend should be/Go again, roll the dice/Show
me where my heart should be.” The strings are still present, but here the beat
takes a more prominent role for most of the song. Then toward the end, there is
a pretty section of strings (reminding me a bit of Cat Stevens’ “Lilywhite,” where
the strings take over at the end). That’s followed by “Grace,” another
beautiful and touching song, the strings adding a soothing element, like they’re
accompanying us as we pass from this world. “As much as you’ll ever hold/Is it enough?” Then “Anything” is a short
instrumental piece, this one existing on its own, not really connected to the
track after it. Tim Crabtree pays baritone saxophone and clarinet.
The first line of “All We Know”
is “All we know is wrong,” though it
takes a while to get the full line, Tim Crabtree first teasing us with repetition of
“All we know is.” This is another interesting song. Check out these excellent
lyrics: “My conceit has been razed/And the
folly has crumbled/You can leave when you like/The halls and the doors haven’t
changed.” Then the opening line of “Shapes” draws me in: “You pull me into shapes that I can’t get out
of.” When we listen to a song like this, I feel that what we are
experiencing is in part what the artist intended, and in part what we ourselves
bring to it, so that each person gets something different from it. Each person
has a slightly different experience of the song. “I want it all. I want none.” Pietro Amato plays French horn on this
track.
“Better” has a more lively
sound and an edge, its insistent rhythm driving us forward with the music. There
is something wild here. “Of all the
golden sheets we make it between/For all of us we know better/And each and
every night, get sewn in the seams/And wash it off, can’t wash it off.”
Paper Beat Scissors returns to a gentler, prettier sound with “Half Awake,” one of my favorite songs on the
album. “Let it go for a while/But you won’t see it/Getting hard of hearing/Let
it go, call it dying.” That moment toward the end where the strings rise is
beautiful. Then the track shifts into another place, a bright place, and once
there, it begins to slow, to gently let us down, or perhaps let us go. The disc
then concludes with “Little Sun,” which begins a bit chaotically, until a beat
emerges. The song builds from there, developing before the vocals come in. J.J.
Ipsen plays vibraphone on this track. “Start
a flame, some little sun.”
CD Track List
- Respire
- Gun Shy
- All It Was
- Don’t Mind
- Grace
- Anything
- All We Know
- Shapes
- Better
- Half Awake
- Little Sun
Parallel Line was released on September 13, 2019 through Forward Music Group.
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