Parcels: LOVED review – playful pop from a band best served live

Image credit: Remi Ferrante Hartman

Existing fans of the renowned pop group will find a healthy offering of funky foot-tappers on Parcels’ light-hearted new album, which will no doubt be morphed into dazzling showstoppers for the band’s huge upcoming shows – it’s just a shame so little of their big-stage theatrics seeped through onto the record.

Even in the first few seconds of Australian-via-Berlin band Parcels’ third album the group seem to be cannily preempting any cynical put-downs I might have come up with for this review. “It’s a brand new day! Sun’s shining, birds are chirping!” one of them jokes in the background, mocking the cheesy rising keyboard progression and resolutely upbeat groove. Later songs feature similar moments of studio banter, the band casually chatting amongst themselves over a middle eight, making fun of their own lyrics or at one point happily humming the indelible hook of the hit that launched their careers, Tieduprightnow.

It’s all a reassuring sign that the funk band have left behind the self-serious philosophising and overlong compositions that bogged down their previous studio outing, the otherwise excellent double album Day/Night. These days Parcels are big news, known globally for their electrifying festival shows – indeed, their sunset slot at Glastonbury this year was a highlight of the entire festival – but they’re yet to release a truly great LP to match. In that sense, LOVED is in keeping with Parcels’ two previous records, offering material rich for live reworkings and extended cuts, but lacking some musical substance in and of itself. There are no exhilarating Anatole Seret drum solos to be found here, or forays into hedonistic Eurodance as they have done so effectively in the recent past on stages big and small. Instead, the band largely stick to their familiar 70s disco schtick, with songs often offering precious little musical development beyond a funky four chord loop. Choruses turn out to be just verses with a slightly altered melody, and any bridge at all is a rare treat. Once you’ve heard the first ten seconds of any song from LOVED, it’s easy to predict how the remaining two minutes and 50 seconds will pan out.

Of course, hypnotic repetition has always been a deliberate part of the Parcels appeal, and whilst LOVED may be stuffed with four chord loops, few bands can play four chord loops quite as well as these Gucci-clad Aussies can. Opener Tobeloved is a case in point: syncopated keys and bass operate in perfect lockstep, the band’s trademark heavenly group vocals floating delicately over the top. Leaveyourlove presents a similarly nut-tight funk groove, Noah Hill sounding as outrageously cool as ever on a grumbling bass line, even whilst delivering featherlight lead vocals at the same time.

LOVED’s playful tone and relatively slim run time means we miss out on anything like the grand surprises from previous albums – Everyroad’s pulsating electrofunk finale, Famous’s all-out Bee Gees disco blitz – but there is nonetheless a touch of daring in the soft rock undertones of Safeandsound, guitarists Jules Crommelin and Patrick Hetherington venturing to turn up their distortion knobs for the first time. The result is in fact one of the record’s finest tracks, a meditative chugger about painfully letting go of a relationship that culminates in a dizzying blizzard of electronics. Disappointingly, it stops short of the full shoegaze cacophony the band has already shown themselves capable of unleashing in Safeandsound’s live version. That turns out to be a theme of LOVED: solid, straightforward songs lacking a final spark to lift them to greatness (and, frustratingly, a spark you suspect the band might discover just in time for their massive show at Wembley Arena later this month).

Nonetheless, Parcels’ trademark modus operandi of peppy ‘70s-inclined funk and disco still has plenty more gas left in the tank. It’s showcased best here on Yougotmefeeling and Leaves, two songs that winningly pair pained lyrics about rejection with some of their most joyous, upbeat grooves to date. “If I’m always gonna let you down / Maybe it’s just better if I leave it all behind,” the hook offers on Yougotmefeeling, but a club-ready dance piano groove turns it into a message of empowerment and acceptance rather than gloom. Leaves is even better, the five band members belting out their sharpest hook since Tieduprightnow. It’s another basic four-chorder the whole way through, but make no mistake, this is Parcels at their very best; I struggle to think of a piece of music that inspires quite so much sheer joy in me.

The close harmonies of Parcels’ group vocals remain invariably delightful, although Patrick Hetherington seems less comfortable stranded all alone on lead vocals. It’s easy to imagine him downing half a packet of sleeping pills before his lacklustre performance on closing track Iwanttobeyourlightagain, all the more frustrating since gorgeous preceding track Finallyover – which sounds like arriving to a warm home after a long day of work – would have been an apt finish. He sounds similarly drowsy on Sorry, where his repetitive apologies (“I’m sorry that it hurts to be loved / I’m sorry that the world isn’t easy”) ring oddly hollow, like a lover is unable or unwilling to seriously confront their own shortcomings. Perhaps this was the intention, but the track is nonetheless a bit of a downer amongst an album of sunny pop about personal growth. Summerinlove is a better take on Parcels melancholia but still ends up sounding like a watered down Lose Yourself to Dance. Try as they might to nail a more introspective, lovelorn sound, Parcels’ speciality remains sun-kissed bangers destined to fire up festival crowds the world over. LOVED is a valuable addition to the Parcels back catalogue, but if you want to see the best this band has to offer, you’ll simply have to hear them live.