Parts and Labor is not album of the month...

but it should be. king creosote stole the skinny AOTM accolade out from under it, but that don't stop Constant Future being all kinds of awesome - the best album i've listened to this year i reckon...

Parts & Labor - Constant Future (*****)

Labelling Brooklyn’s Parts & Labor an “experimental noise-rock band” is one more reason to take user-edited encyclopaedias with a pinch of salt. The band experiment, sure – for proof, recall their perverse decision to follow hook-filled breakthrough Mapmaker with the fifty-one song oddity Escapers Two: Grind-Pop.

And, yes, they’re unquestionably noisy on occasion, with Bright White (amongst others) culminating in a raucous din. But such a description ignores their unabashed pop side, with Constant Future echoing less challenging sources than the above wiki-description implies: there’s a Celtic-folk feel to Hurricane; Rest is a close cousin of REM’s IRS years; while Pure Annihilation nicks a sizable chunk of its melody from king-of-kings praising hymn Give Me Joy in My Heart.

Admittedly, it’s folk played through feedback, REM tailed with a buzzing coda, and a hymn with enough distortion to make a vicar’s collar curl, but their commitment to tunes over abrasion is unwavering. “I used to be a hurricane, but now I’m just a breeze,” Dan Friel sings on the penultimate track, before drums stomp in strong. Don’t believe his lies: on this form, they’re powerful enough to raze cities – yet leave the survivors whistling along.

Out 7th March