With last year's Octopus Off-Broadway,Parlour showed their rare ability to set your cerebral cortex ablazetrack after track. The album just never let up. In keeping with thistheme, Tim Furnish and Co. release Googler, only nine monthsafter Parlour's debut, not letting fans of the first album catch theircollective breath. From the looks of things, Parlour may be able tokeep up this pace. All of these tracks were recorded three to fiveyears ago, suggesting that this group has a lot of music in the canwaiting merely for polishing and mixing. It's anything but canned,though: Googler is certainly a polished release. Again, Parlouris able to keep me glued to the speakers with infectious grooves andtrippy elements. From the first track, it's almost business as usual on"Jololinine," where interweaved guitar lines and thudding bass lay thegroundwork for percussions, both real and sampled. "Distractor" isalmost a departure, with a workhorse beat and driving energy, driven byan almost manic bassline and steady powerful drums. Then it's back toclassic Parlour: "Over the Under" is the Spider-Man theme of the 21stcentury—an underneath-the-skin builder with great effects and hypnoticrhythm. Parlour just make it all sound so easy. Maybe too easy. Some ofthe same tricks on Octopus are also here, with "Hop Pife,"containing the same eerie effect from the first track on that album butextending it out far further and with greater success. Thus, eventhough you may hear some of the same elements you've heard before, themusic never bores you. "Pife" is one of the album's best tracks, thesoundtrack to any number of my future dreams with no explanation, andalso its longest. The album closer, "Svrendikditement" brings it allhome. Distorted beat samples, keyboard washes, and xylophone make forstrange bedfellows, but it's still utterly compelling. I call it a vastimprovement. The song "Over the Under" is available in its entiretyover at Temporary Residence.com if the 60-second samples below don'tsatisfy. Read More
