Five Australians from Byron Bay are behind Parcels.
On the surface, it looks like surfers blowing in the wind: long hair, cool clothes, strong accent.
Musically, the clichés are swept away.
Relentless groove, refrains as danceable as they are catchy, where the western folk blends with the pop of the 1970s. A wide musical palette defines as "disco cowboy", all overhung by the sunny voice of Patrick Hetherington, recalling the musical harmonies of the Beach Boys.
No doubt Parcels is unlike any other Australian band.
Except visually.
The cover of
Day / Night
clearly underscores the group's desire to play on opposites. Plots
Now based in the Berlin capital, a sinister nocturnal utopia, the five friends founded Parcels there in 2014. Their little trick is to combine the words of the titles of their productions. Legend has it that a keyboard dropped them when they presented their first demo. A year later, the group launched and released
Clockscared
, a first EP. Still anonymous, they nevertheless seduce the masters of the French Touch, the Daft Punk, from whom they draw a lot of inspiration. The duo gladly team up with the production of their single
Overnight
in 2017.
Hideout
, their second EP released the same year, is remarkable. Their first album, released on the Kitsuné label, was crowned platinum in 2018.
Read alsoParcels, in the footsteps of Daft Punk, reinvents funk
Composed in a small Berlin room, then refined under the oppressive heat of the
“Australian bush”
,
Day / Night
, their second album, is no small task. One hundred and fifty demos were presented on the day of its finalization. The nineteen titles selected form a double album:
Day
, then
Night
. The songs answer each other:
Light
and
Shadow,
Daywalk
and
Nightwalk
,
Outside
and
Inside
. The album thus deals with opposing concepts, such as identity and anonymity, family and independence, belonging and isolation, the self and the shadow of the self.
Day / Night can be
listened to like deciphering a solar calendar.
Somethinggreatter
, the first single unveiled from the album, is like a disco-rock of great delicacy, tailor-made for a sunset on the main stage of a festival. For
Light
, it is more obvious. Prelude to the record, the six-minute pop epic rises in power like a rising sun, with these five-part harmonies that have now become the band's signature. As for
Nightwalk
, it is Parcels' most experimental track to date with a sound of footsteps in the night, advancing through a lush thicket, accompanied by some jazz chords.
In the end,
Day / Night
is an astral album that comes at the right time, in the month of November when the days plunge more quickly into the winter darkness.
Find Parcels in concert at the Zénith in Paris on October 2, 2022, then on October 5, 6 and 8 in Lille, Rennes and Reims.