Parts & Labor : Receivers

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/partsandlaborreceivers.jpg" alt=" " />Parts & Labor overshoot the mark a bit as they continue their growth on their latest, <i>Receivers</i>. ...
7.5 Jagjaguwar
2008 

Parts & Labor : Receivers

Most noise-rock bands begin and end there, and are only appreciated by the small subset of noise-rock fans (who fall somewhere between punk/metal/alternative, or wherever Thurston Moore – QRO live review – of Sonic Youth– QRO live review – tells them…).  Brooklyn’s Parts & Labor, however, really built into something more last year with Mapmaker (QRO review), a record that saw the band hone their big sound and electronics in service of a vision.  With the quick follow-up Receivers, the group doesn’t back away from that approach – in fact, they seem to go too far past it.

Formed around the core of singer/bassist B.J. Warshaw and singer/guitarist/keyboardist Dan Friel (QRO photos), Parts & Labor have been notorious in the Brooklyn scene for running through drummers.  But in the past year-plus, they seem to have stabilized with latest drummer Joe Wong – and even added a new guitarist, Sarah Lipstate (allowing Friel to focus on keyboard and electronics), becoming a foursome for the first time.  On Receivers, their first record with the new line-up, Parts & Labor certainly utilize their developing skill, hewing more to harmony than ever before, while bringing in a ‘grand hall’-like effect to much of their work.  That best comes through on opener “Satellites”, which also features louder vocals, another hallmark of the new album.

However, that grandness takes away some of the band’s electric energy, making middle trio of “Mount Misery”, “Little Ones”, and “The Ceasing Now” not quite memorable enough.  Receivers does pick it up when Friel’s electronics are given more play, especially “Nowhere’s Nigh”, but also “Wedding In a Wasteland” and finisher “Solemn Show World”.  The penultimate “Prefix Free” mixes the two styles, grand high hall and drum-tech, but while no part is bad, the end result is too all over the place.

At only eight tracks, and so soon after Mapmaker, Receivers is almost more of an ‘extended EP’ (which would make it an ‘extended extended play’…) – though it isn’t a short record, with only one song clocking it at under four minutes (and only just that, in the 3:41 “Misery”) and two tracks over seven minutes long (7:16 “Satellites” and 7:17 “Ceasing”), for over forty minutes of material, each piece averaging over five minutes.  The widening of the material, the widening of the band, the widening of their skill – Parts & Labor have certainly evolved from the often retrograde noise-rock arena, but Receivers, though strong, isn’t as pitch-perfect as Mapmaker.

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