Then the Bad Plus made their major label debut with These Are the Vistas in 2003, they generated heaps of praise for their supposed ability to capture a rock band’s energy in a jazz trio format. But their hamfisted mistranslations of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Iron Man” were hardly revelatory. Between, say, the Lounge Lizards in the late ’80s up through to Neneh Cherry’s 2012 collaboration with Swedish-Norweigan saxophonist Mats Gustafsson’s trio the Thing, you can point to dozens of artists who have subverted or even nullified the dichotomy between jazz and rock. Brooklyn trio Parlor Walls sit in this lineage.
On their first full-length, Opposites, Parlor Walls convey urgency with a forcefulness that’s both convincing and sophisticated.
Like the Thing, core members Alyse Lamb and Chris Mulligan use repetitive phrases that speak directly to the gut—“riffs,” for all intents and purposes. But where the Thing’s meaty sound verges on street tough (in a good way), Parlor Walls approach aggression with an agility that’s rare no matter what style of music you look at.
Frontwoman Lamb’s guitar sounds as if it was run through a classic Fender Twin-style amp, a reverb-heavy tone that instantly evokes early rock’n’roll and rockabilly/surf twang. But the makeup of her chords has little in common with those forms. Even as Lamb slashes and wails with her guitar strings, her playing hovers at the music’s outer edges, creating a cavernous ambience for Mulligan’s synth parts, which essentially perform the same function as a bass guitar. Mulligan’s drums tumble with the steady clang of a cement mixer—they’re loud, assertive, and colorful—but it’s his synth parts that actually drive the music and sustain its foundational groove. Meanwhile, nimble saxophonist Kate Mohanty plays a role akin to a rock guitarist’s, supplying the most hummable licks in tandem with Mulligan’s synth lines.
Likeminded groups like Denmark’s Selvhenter and England’s Get the Blessing have shown over the past decade that it’s still possible to uncover new shades of darkness by using jazz instrumentation in unconventional ways. Parlor Walls follow suit with Opposites and, in the process, lend new definition to the term “heavy.” Even without vocals, the album’s mood would stand out, but Lamb’s singing adds weight to the tension and intensifies what the other instruments are doing like a lit match held inches away from a puddle of gasoline.
A multifaceted vocalist, Lamb tends to be highly tuneful and dextrous. Still, her phrasing lands somewhere between taunting and alarm, and there are moments where she channels the spitfire edge of riot grrrl-era punk. She matches her vocals with appropriately complex lyrics that can be read a number of ways. Her verses percolate with obvious references to emotional ruptures, but she stops short of spelling them out. Her images pack a punch nevertheless: “Cover me/To my knees/Keep me warm/Put me at ease/But you only feed me when you’re full,” she sings on “Cover Me.” Imagine having amnesia and speaking to someone who, you infer, has a bone to pick with you. At times, that’s what this album feels like.
Meanwhile, the guitar and sax flit like moving shadows cast by strobing red and blue siren lights outside your window. All of these elements combine to create a sinister vibe that rides the line between pleasant and imposing. On “Play Opposites,” Lamb asks, “Hey, why don’t we go/And play opposites?/Burn it to the ground/There ain’t nothing left.” And on “Hesitation,” she sings, “Come through, I’ll leave my light on/Rearrange my shapes/We can imagine partition/Then see it all fall away.” Lamb probably wasn’t referring to the supposed “partition” between jazz and rock, but it’s just as well that we let it fall away. Other bands have given us reason to do the same for years, but that doesn’t make Opposites any less extraordinary.