Elusive Parallelograms
and Everything Changes
Elusive Parallelograms

"and Everything Changes" is Elusive Parallelograms (EP) debut album. And I regretfully have to say this Chicago based band's first full release suffers some of the child-diseases you sometimes find in debut albums. But there are also some promising moments, which at least makes EP worth an eardrop or two.

EP has, according to their press release, set out to destroy the music by going to the roots. In their case this obviously means mashing up psychedelica, traditional indie and more straightforward rock. Then, add some fuzz and pop elements, and start running in every alternative direction.

Most of the tracks on "and Everything Changes" are approximately 2 minutes long, so even if it has got as much as 14 tracks it is a short album. And symptomatically the two longer songs; "Closure" and "Intelligent Design", stands out as the ones you give ear to. This may be because they have a more common structure, but also that they sound more whole. "Closure" being this futuristic rock piece, yet heavily influenced by the seventies. "Intelligent Design" turning into a more popish direction, but still with a psychedelic tread.

This is not to say that the other 12 tracks on the album aren't good. But most of them just slips away unnoticed. So they could definitely have had use for a more stringent production. Especially since when their so-called musical destruction works, it works pretty well.

And it may be the pretentious band name, the ideas of cutting to the core of music, and the insisting on not getting genre-classified, lading me into thinking that if they tried a little less hard to be so unique, they might end up as being special. Because sadly enough, they kind of get lost in their own ideas and lack of direction. So with the prospect of little more easiness and focus, I actually look forward to their next release.

Copyright © 2009 Aslaug O Klausen