Parades @ Jive, Adelaide(16/04/11)

Wed 20th Apr, 2011 in Gig Reviews

The opening act Kins is a Melbourne four piece fronted by Thomas Savage formerly of Oh Mercy who he left last year to pursue his own musical direction. Savage’s own vocals come to the forefront in this act and thankfully he sounds great as does multi-instrumentalist Jacqueline Collyer when she takes over the mic. The band doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary and whilst some of the melodies have promise and the band look the part, it’s likely they will have to grow over time and develop some type of edge before they start to make waves.

Former Triple J Next Crop artist Little Scout deserve to be rated amonst the cream of upcoming indie-folk bands in Australia. Deliberately trying to avoid the sceney quirks that more often than not accompany girly-folk bands, singer Melissa Tickle’s vocals are clean and earnest. They are nestled perfectly amid a refereshing backdrop of ambience created by sensitive yet ambitious drumming, some great synth work by sister Kirsty Tickle and a warm combination of reverb-heavy guitar and soft bass. Some of the songs like Dead Loss are achingly beautiful and when the harmonies hit on Paper Aereoplanes you know there’s something special about this band.

Parades, to be blunt, are amazing musicians who combine blissfully with a sound encompassing chimey arpeggios, aggressive riffs, silky higher-range vocals and musical prodigy Jonathan Boulet’s percussive intesity. Some acts not only have good songs but possess a musical chemistry that simply stands apart from other acts, and these guys fit the bill to a tee. At the Jive show the combination of guitars and sometimes synth was rich and harmonious whilst still retaining a lighter warmth and ambience whilst the intense complexity of the drum patterns really drove the momentum of the sound. The vocal harmonies between captivating frontman Daniel Cunningham and guitarist/synth player Tim Jenkins and at other times Boulet were flawless and sublime. Good bands when harmonising can make a difficult task sound easy, but then again Parades seem to have a habit of making the difficult look easy. There were simply no dud tracks and virtually each song matched the quality of singles like Loserspeak in New Tongue and Hunters. The dappled guitar flourishes at the intro of Dead Nationale were reminescent of Jeff Buckley’s purity on Grace before Boulet’s drums cut through the softness and intensified the momentum, bringing an element of satisfaction.

At first glance Parades appear to be one of the best bands going around, not only because each member nails their part, but because the sum of all the parts comes together with a beauty and complexity that is seldom matched, at least in Australia’s indie community.