For a band that seems enamoured with the grand musical gesture, Parts & Labor are admirably under-indulgent when it comes to song length. Often seen as a burden by ambitious rock groups, especially relative to the lengthy output of prog rockers and jam bands, the standardized length of a pop song seems a perfect fit for Parts & Labor, and the trio’s new album ‘Constant Future’ is a well-sequenced collection of amplification and electronics that further establishes the band’s identity.
Though the band doesn’t do much to expand on their 2008 album ‘Receivers’, the songs seem more cut-n-dry, their penchant for build-ups and suspenseful intros intact but not to the point of excess. Fake Names could easily have taken longer to begin, the slow development of ethereal keyboard and tom-heavy accents taking barely a minute before the song launches into percussion rolls and grinding guitars. The fat is trimmed, but nothing feels hurried. Parts & Labor get done what they mean to accomplish; they just do it without fucking around.
The album goes at a pretty decent clip, Outnumbered a power tune with a hook that almost out-Byko’s Peter Gabriel. The drum kit just doesn’t quit. Following with the title track, the keys are held down like a pulsating see saw under the rolling tom hits and thick respiration of bass guitar. The wisps of flying notes seem bred from Kraftwerk, an antiquated modernity dressing up a bulldozing construct. Few songs on ‘Constant Future’ carry any kind of straightforward or orthodox drum beat, exceptions being the very rhythmic Rest, the near-powermetallic Bright White and the throbbing Hurricane. Otherwise, songs like the aforementioned Outnumbered, A Thousand Roads and Skin & Bones follow a disciplined drum pattern, drummer Joe Wong deviating between tom and snare in a fit of successive activity.
Echo Chamber seems based in bagpipes and start-stop chords, Dan Friel’s keyboard notes dancing in the air as the backdrop stomps factory-like. The softest the album gets is Without A Seed, its vocal folk-like, and Wong mostly reduced to a single kick drum and occasional snare roll. The album’s closer Neverchanger provides epic outro: large beats, long keystrokes and undulating bass churn. Then, the song grinds to a halt.
Though Parts & Labor probably made themselves understood before ‘Constant Future’ in terms of sound and vision, this latest album accomplishes a lot in less than forty minutes. Passionate hooks, blatant noise interacting with fruitful melody, percussive heft: there’s a lot to appreciate here. Parts & Labor manage to stay versatile enough to keep the sound interesting while distinguishing themselves amongst indie rock’s finest.