Receivers

Parts & Labor | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 21, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Jagjaguwar
• ASIN: B001EN461Q
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #197,835 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Brooklyn rock foursome Parts & Labor aims high, sometimes quite literally. The band’s fourth album, Receivers, opens with an epically sad elegy to an unspecified number of suicidal satellites. Meanwhile, the instruments burn intense musical fuel, piling layer upon layer of guitar, keyboard, drums, and billowing vocal harmonies atop a muscular quarter-note pulse rendered at relentless tempo, and the whole sonic cavalcade rockets forth at top volume. In all, “Satellites” may be the most grandiose statement of intention from an indie-rock album in years. Not that it’s totally unprecedented. Core members Dan Friel (keyboards, vocals) and BJ Warshaw (bass, vocals) already traded in gargantuan noise and imaginative songwriting on the notable Stay Afraid (2006) and Mapmakers (2007). But newly armed with guitarist Sarah Lipstate and drummer Joseph Wong, Parts & Labor have at last begun flirting with genius. In their twisted reconfiguring of popularly recognizable musical elements, the band lets shine the rock populism that distinguishes this masterpiece from its merely suggestive predecessors. True, there are feral aspects to Receivers: frequently indulgent codas, Friel’s voice (“Mount Misery,” “Wedding in a Wasteland”), and bagpipes (“Little Ones”). Each of the album’s eight songs drill through merciless decibel levels, draw filthy lyrical landscapes, and apologize for nothing. Yet ultimately, Parts & Labor offer an equal share of nirvana in return. --Jason Kirk

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Not quite as good as Mapmaker, but still solid, June 26, 2009

By 

Aaron Stewart (Palo Alto, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Receivers (MP3 Download)

Parts & Labor continue their sonic assault, but without quite the harmonies that made Mapmaker so palatable.

Still with great, complicated, hard-driving electronica sounds - if that's what floated your boat, you'll find it here. If you also miss the harmonizing that helped make Mapmaker, try "Stay Afraid" instead.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Consistently surprising and an unexpected pleasure, October 27, 2008

By 

221b BakerSt (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Receivers (Audio CD)

The new album from Brooklyn based band Parts & Labor is a consistently surprising effort, combining noise, prog and psychedelic rock, often with 70's heavy metal guitar backdrop, into an experimental mix that for the first half of the album often doesn't even seem like the same band from track to track. They also layer on some electronic flourishes and display a real talent for a pop hook, as with the irresistible "Nowheres Nigh." Things slow down a bit at the midpoint with "The Ceasing Now," but pick up again with the somewhat regal sounding ballad "Wedding In A Wasteland" and the prog rock workout "Prefix Now," both of which have an epic sweep about them. This is a pretty cool record, and having not listened to Parts & Labor in the past, this was an unexpected pleasure. Standout cuts: "Satellites," "Nowheres Nigh," "Mount Misery" and "Wedding In A Wasteland."