back/next/close

Review of Moron Parade's 'heat slap' from Jurrian Hage’s Axiom of Choice

Progressive rock Zine from Utrecht, The Netherlands.

www.cs.uu.nl/people/jur/progrock.html

Summary

The reviews I got with this one describe Moron Parade as oddball indie pop with references to Pavement and Sonic Youth. Interesting instrumentation, but don't think there is only bass on this one. In fact, it seems most members can play any instrument the band utilizes, guitar, bass, drums or keyboards.

The music

One Note is quirky up-tempo track, definitely not one note. The next one Permanente has influences of The Fall mainly in the vocals, and a strong bass presence. The tongue in cheek indie rock continues on 2x Twice. The band has a certain avantgardisticness to them, which makes them somewhat fitting for this website. With Bite My Tongue me move into a noisy Britpop direction. I like the hallucinating guitar work towards the end. Bite My Tongue is a catchy track, what most reviewers will call indie rock. The melodies are in order. Tennis Locum is a short one featuring effects and samples. Mints! has a rowdy ending with those hallucinating guitars again.

Ans is a relatively long piece, clocking over five minutes. It opens with atmospheric guitar and bass lines. A low droning, but melodic sound as this song builds up, until the punkrock elements come shining through, well shining, bursting is more like it. Distorted punk rock, but never lacking in melody. Feel My Rom is a bouncy one, with sharp noisy guitar work. The vocals have been vocoded out of recognizability. A weird effect. Indie Rock Sunday has a rather clean opening and low vocals out of which boredom eloquently speaks. Through The Heart has vocal harmonies that do not harmonize very well, on purpose I would imagine. The song ends very low key with synths.

Ec8 is an easy going bouncy track, with the guitar going slow in the beginning. The noise comes after as does the singing. There is something of Kraftwerk in here, Autobahn. Millions Of Prizes brings us back to standard quirky indie rock. Pajamas has subtle strummings of acoustic guitars. The vocal melodies are very recognizable, and it has a kind of warm Christmas like feel. A surprising turn of events. Riptape means the return of punk rock, while Penelope is a low pace melodic piece, with the guitars rambling. The vocals are desperate, a bit in the vein of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Interesting song and good too.

Six more songs to go. Malpractice is the longest one on the album, almost six minutes. The guitar reign on this one, in a varied way. Surprising that this would be an instrumental. Leave Me Alone opens with acoustic guitar, and like Never Done Anything which follows it, is quite low key. The latter of these is quite repetitive with sharp guitar lines throughout.

Eradicate is a strong track, bouncy but instantly recognizable. The vocals are aggressive, the guitar lines repetitive. After Understand we conclude with the up-tempo Rikshaw.

Conclusion

Indeed, this band owes more to Pavement and Sonic Youth than Genesis, Yes or the other progressive greats. I liked the music, at least much of it, although sometimes the music is a bit too straightforwardly indie rock. Melodies are usually okay and the overall sound is fresh. However, this is not something in the line of what we usually review for this website, even when the band turns to avant-garde at times.

© Jurriaan Hage