The Parlor the bold swampy punk bloodletting of "Worcester County Laketown"

 

"I’m from a backwoods town / Where it’s easy to get lost and old / And I’d drive through the winding roads / Listening to Depeche Mode / And all the alcoholics lived on / The lakes in the hills with the pontoon boats..."

The bold swampy punk bloodletting of "Worcester County Laketown" by Parlor, the free wheeling neo-psychedelic indie project of  Albany, New York based husband and wife team Eric Krans and Jen O'Connor, is wonderfully brazen, stark, artful and in your face. Like something performed at a rural church or a rural venue that used to be a church, the song is an open book, Krans stomping out the darkly drawn candid words with spit and vigor accompanied by a rather dirty electric guitar and a chorale of voices amping up the angst. This feels as much as a diary being burned in public as it does a revival because while Krans is obviously casting out demons, we all might not have the same ones, we certainly have our fair share (except maybe my middle school friend Jacob). 

This all feels real and fully exorcised, like honest gut punch films by the likes of a Jeff Nichols or a James Ponsoldt about the human condition or the unfortunate conditions of being human where we are blessed or cursed by familial lineage carrying addictions to a whole lot of awful things. The first act (lyrically) paints vivid pictures:

"I’m from a backwoods town

Where it’s easy to get lost and old
And I’d drive through the winding roads
Listening to Depeche Mode
And all the alcoholics lived on
The lakes in the hills with the pontoon boats
And they’d shop at the booze supermarket
And drink until the pain floats
And my family sat in the front row
Of the church up the hill with sad Christians
Nobody went to therapy
They all passed it on to their children
And some of my friends got into pills
And now I see them in the sunset"

I won't spoil the rest, "Worcester County Laketown" is the kind of song you want to swallow whole a few times in a row and then think about it.

LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):

[Named after a room in the 19th century farmhouse where we live, farm, and create, The Parlor is a project by husband and wife team Eric Krans and Jen O’Connor. The multi-instrumentalist, producer-composers create intimate art-pop intended to reflect some of the most powerful aspects of the human experience. Our immersive soundscaping and aural synesthetic-composition is the vessel through which we share our most vulnerable moments.]

[Worcester County Laketown, the latest single from The Parlor’s forthcoming double album Sun By Day Moon By Night is a sweetly abrasive indie rock song with hints of Modest Mouse, 50s rock & roll, psych-folk, and a vaguely reggae bassline. Lyrics explore addiction, inherited trauma, religion, and growing up in rural Massachusetts before exploding into guttural chorus "Throw my body in the water, watch me disappear into oblivion."]

-Robb Donker Curtius

LYRICS

I’m from a backwoods town
Where it’s easy to get lost and old
And I’d drive through the winding roads
Listening to Depeche Mode
And all the alcoholics lived on
The lakes in the hills with the pontoon boats
And they’d shop at the booze supermarket
And drink until the pain floats
And my family sat in the front row
Of the church up the hill with sad Christians
Nobody went to therapy
They all passed it on to their children
And some of my friends got into pills
And now I see them in the sunset

And everything carries on
Pretend like there’s nothing wrong
Been keeping secrets so long
Respect mine when I’m gone
When I’m gone
Respect mine when I’m gone
I’ve been so long gone
So long

Dump my body in the water
Watch me sink down to the bottom
Dump my body in the water
Let it decompose into lake mud
Go buy big houses and buy
Motorboats wakeboard into the sunset
And when you go swimming
Try not to let your toes touch the mud
As you watch me disappear into oblivion
Throw my body in the water
Watch me disappear into oblivion

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6oEdwuInrQw0aMaZR0b6ms

https://theparlor.bandcamp.com/album/sun-by-day-moon-by-night

https://www.instagram.com/the_parlor_music_

https://www.facebook.com/TheParlorMusic/



Named after a room in the 19th century farmhouse where we live, farm, and create, The Parlor is a project by husband and wife team Eric Krans and Jen O’Connor. The multi-instrumentalist, producer-composers create intimate art-pop intended to reflect some of the most powerful aspects of the human experience. Our immersive soundscaping and aural synesthetic-composition is the vessel through which we share our most vulnerable moments.

The Parlor’s music has been featured in: Pitchfork, Northern Transmissions, PopMatters, Impose Magazine, Indie Current, The Joy of Violent Movement, Culture Collide, Consequence of Sound, The Wild Honey Pie, KEXP, Bandcamp Weekly, PopMatters, Ravelin Magazine, Badd Press, AudioFemme, NY Daily News, Week in Pop, Kid President, The Battery [film], After Midnight [film], The Great Unknown [film starring Olympia Dukakis] and more

The Parlor, Albany New York, husband / wife composers / performers / multi-instrumentalists / producers, neo-psychedelic, freak folk, punk, grunge dusted, art pop, art punk, indie rock, "Worcester County Laketown",