Parcels: Live Vol. 1 review – Magnificent, subtle reinvention

Parcels are not a raw, roughly-cut band. At least that’s what I thought before hearing Live Vol. 1. Their excellent 2018 self-titled debut album was full of creamy-smooth grooves and airy falsetto, with lyrics musing paradise and self-acceptance. They end up sounding like a Vulfpeck that’s taken a breather, calmed themselves down and grown up a bit; you won’t be seeing de facto frontman Jules Crommelin walking on his hands to finish each set Jack Stratton-style. In fact, improvised solos are a rare gift for any Parcels fan, and drummer Anatole Serret spends most of his time tapping away at that ubiquitous boots-and-cats-and groove. But where Parcels lack the fun, boyish energy of Vulfpeck, they make up for in effortless, tight-as-a-nut grooves that seem to tap into the listeners psychology and get their foot tapping before they’ve even realised. If you’ve heard their album, you’ll know that I’m not entirely justified in implying Parcels is a ‘soft’ band: at the heart of the debut lies a monster in the form of the eight-minute showpiece Everyroad. From a giant buildup (and shocking lyrical plot twist) emerges a chest-throbbingly fat synth bass that slaps you out of your funk-induced reverie before a razor-sharp secondary synth chord deals an uppercut. Everyroad road feels like a brief window into what Parcels could be. Far from being a three-chord disco band, Parcels can wield almighty, genre-bending electronic grooves, if only they had the courage to step out of the pleasing and comforting bubble of their now well-established aesthetic.

Enter Live Vol. 1, the band’s first ‘live’ album, although it was recorded in private in one take at Hansa Studios in Berlin. Like Vulfpeck’s Madison Square Garden live album (the stuff of legend, if you ask me), Vol. 1 comes with a professionally made video of the group in action, and it goes without saying that the best way to experience this album is through that video (although the visuals are admittedly less spectacular than Vulfpeck’s massive arena show). Right from the off, Parcels start on the front foot. Intro track Enter basically is Parcels – these foreboding piano chords feature throughout their material, most prominently on, you guessed it, Everyroad. The early transitions are nailed to a tea. Enter flows into Myenemy and before you know it you’re at the buildup for Comedown, featuring a lead guitar riff sounding as euphoric as ever. The build straight into Lightenup has always been one of my highlights from the album, and the subsequent track is made even better through some double-guitar-solo action that had me practically screaming with delight. Gamesofluck is next after a quick breather, and it’s perhaps one of the band’s most underrated songs. It’s in this song that the elusive dark side of Parcels also makes an appearance: there’s something electrifying and yet menacing about the guttural yelps four of them make in the chorus, which is made all the more impactful by the piercing falsetto, impeccably harmonised as always.

Then comes the first left turn of the album. A bass-slide sends us into the trap-tinged interlude track Intrude. It’s an elephant of a groove, that stomps around before ominously wandering off into an eerie winds sound effect. Withorwithout ends the intriguing pause. I’ve long written it off as one of their weaker songs, but in Vol. 1 this song is well worth the listen. I don’t know what it is – the mix, the slightly different keyboard choices, the slightly more forceful vocals – but Withorwithout seems to have gained much more meat and impact from its original recording.

Intrude was a surprise, but I was in for even more of a shock when keyboardist Louie Swain started fiddling with his mic-ed up radio. For a surreal 45 seconds entitled Retuned, we are subjected to a kaleidoscope of fuzzy voices, from self-important American football commentators, to mangled classical music, to fuzzy, rambling German voices that end up sitting in for the usual speaking that features in the track Everyroad. It’s a reflection of Parcels’ global theme (the whole idea of the band was based on their emigration from Australia to Germany) and poses deeper questions than you might come to expect from a studio-recorded live album. Whether Louie was really re-tuning the radio, or it was just a pre-decided recording is besides the point; Parcels are clearly out to do more than bash out the hits with this live album.

The largely wordless Everyroad is truly stunning. After essentially playing Everyroad in the album’s opening, the song was in need of a rework, and boy did it get it. Anatole Serret may mostly just play the same stock pop drum pattern, but to dismiss him as a poor drummer is unfair. One of the reasons why is how he approaches the climax to the live version of Everyroad: like a drumming monkey wound up too far, Serret starts bashing and then keeps going, getting quicker and quicker and quicker until the speed of movement becomes almost unbelievable. A ghastly cacophony of synths follows him up a crescendo that topples dramatically into the aforementioned chest-throbbing electro-funk section like you’ve never heard it before. This is a band at the peak of their powers; imaginative, awe-inspiring and utterly unpredictable.

Untried is yet another beautiful, previously unreleased interlude track that is once again unlike anything one the debut album. It falls away into a truly gorgeous rendition of Yourfault, a song that feels like curling up under an oak tree on a golden summer’s afternoon. 

Almost as thrilling as songs like Everyroad are the two surprise new songs that appear towards the end of Live Vol. 1. The first is Redline, in which Noah takes a rest and leaves Patrick Hetherington to cover the low-end duties on a pulsating key bass. Patrick is also at the centre of the second new song, Elude. With this song comes yet another new dimension to the band. It’s not sinister electro like Redline but soaring, strikingly beautiful piano house music that is surely up there with the best material the band has released to date. A thumping piano gives way to a mournful keyboard melody that gets more and more impactful the more I listen to it. Elude is incredibly hopeful, and a sign that Parcels have much, much more left in them yet to be revealed.

That was the prevailing thought as I danced away to the inevitable set closer, Tieduprightnow – this album could just be the beginning of something extraordinary. There’s no doubt that Vol. 1 delivers on what the fans expected by serving up the hits from a brand new perspective, and indeed Tieduprightnow remains one of my favourite songs of all time. But this is more than just a greatest hits show. Vol. 1 sounds like a band evolving, growing and subtly reinventing themselves. Whether it’s in the disorientating experimentation of Intrude or Everyroad, or the soaring pop of Elude, Parcels are no longer a band that can be dismissed as too finely polished, too rounded at the edges. Indeed, some rawness has emerged, and with it a new sense of ambition. No, Parcels aren’t destined to become the next Vulfpeck, but possibly something even better. They’re forging their own path to musical brilliance through experimentation that defies comparison. It’s not an easy path to take – straying from what they know best inevitably carries its risks – but so far Parcels haven’t made a wrong step.