PARADES

Efterklang is Danish Post-Rock Band that seemed to be influenced by Múm before that Album appeared. For Parades they left their electronica backgrounds behind, stepping into absolutely new territories, and they had about 30 guests with them. As the result they produced an album where clarinettes, trumpets, oboes and violins set the tone instead of guitar or any else known instrument in the genre, just as the whole album leaves every known or common ground. They play an abstract, avant gardish music with a lot of choires doing the vocals , but they don´t do it in a frightening or too serious way, it´s like those musicians played an adult and LSD´d Version of Snow White and the 7 dwarves that in some moments even reminds me King Crimsons Lizard Album. Nice to see them keeping a constant level in quality and production, I read they worked on this Album for 18 months. Hard to judge if the record itself is overproduced, there´s simply nothing I know to compare with Parades, it´s so fresh, adventureous and colourful, a truly beautiful journey and simply the highest recommendations to everybody admiring the art in the music!!

"Parades" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Danish post-rock act Efterklang. The album was released through The Leaf Label in October 2007. Efterklang had up until then worked in something close to DIY mode, but after struggling with recording and finishing "Parades" for nearly 18 months, the band finally decided to bring in producer/engineer Darren Allison to work with Mads Brauer (electronics, flute) on the mixing of the album. So this is an album that took almost 2 years to create and because the band got stuck in the process a couple of times, they decided to do other projects on the side. For example they also worked on the "Under Giant Trees (2007)" EP, which they released in April 2007.

The music on "Parades" is quite different from the music on the debut album "Tripper (2004)" (although the two albums do share some similarities). First of all the dry electronic beats that dominated the rhythm side of "Tripper (2004)" and which were a dominant part of the unique sound on that album, are now almost completely gone from Efterklang´s sound (which isn´t as surprising if you are familiar with the "Under Giant Trees (2007)" EP). Instead there´re lots of classical orchestral instrumentaion in the music which provide "Parades" with a more organic sound. The instrumentation is sophisticated and the arrangements are quite clever at times. The vocals are still male/female whispering type vocals. Rather monotone to my ears but the melodies does unfold a bit on repeated listens. There are also some choir sections on the album.

The sound production is professional, organic, detailed, and suits the music well. upon conclusion "Parades" is a pretty strong and very unique sounding album. I still think the band struggle a bit to come up with something catchy and memorable, but then again it´s music that´s intended for serious repeated listening sessions, rather than shallow sing along parties. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is still deserved though.