by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
For the past five years Parlor Walls have consistently pushed themselves with every release, never resting on their laurels, never creating the same record twice. The Brooklyn based duo of Alyse Lamb and Chris Mulligan make a mutant breed of post-punk that imparts the wisdom of Mission of Burma with a sense of free jazz and no-wave skronk, creating a shapeshifting sound all their own. They can play is simple and minimalist and yet it never really appears that way. Following last year’s EXO EP (released via Northern Spy), the band are set to return with a new full length, Heavy Tongue, due out in February via the band’s own Famous Swords. Recorded together with Kevin McMahon (Pile, Gorgeous, Widowspeak) at his Marcata Studios, the band continue to warp reality with artistic interpretations of all punk music can be.
Lead single “Lunchbox” and it’s accompanying “Spinning Gold” offer two sides of the coin (though it’s still a singular coin), with the former an experimental track that works an anxious groove to creep under your skin while the latter stomps around with a sludgy detachment. Both songs have a shade of industrial electronics, painting the steely tonality with a matte sheen. There’s an alien presence to “Lunchbox,” one that feels similar to an interpretation of human life from millions of miles away. The video was animated by Mulligan, with a rainbow of animated beings (people, creatures, somewhere in between…) feeling the groove, wrapped in the dense beat and steady layering. The song is forever building, adding and adding until the final moments of claustrophobic boogie. “Spinning Gold” relies on a heavy riff and slow mounting rhythmic stampede, each crack of the toms as heavy as a ton of bricks.
Speaking about the songs, Lamb shared “both about the corruption of power. In "Lunchbox," I attempt to rehabilitate it. In "Spinning Gold," I attempt to eradicate it. Do I lead with love or seize with fury?”