Sugar Army / Parallels Amongst Ourselves, The
Album: Parallels Amongst Ourselves, The   Collection:General
Artist:Sugar Army   Added:Jul 2010
Label:Shock  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2010-09-19 Pull Date: 2010-11-21
Week Ending: Nov 21 Oct 31 Oct 17 Oct 10 Sep 26
Airplays: 3 2 1 1 2

Recent Airplay
1. Apr 27, 2013: Nobody Move: Knives & Daggers
Tongues In Cheeks
4. May 12, 2011: Find Your Legs & Find Your Horns
No Need For Lovers
2. Nov 15, 2012: New Noise
Tongues In Cheeks
5. Jan 06, 2011: And Other Useful Bibles
No Need For Lovers
3. Mar 16, 2012: InAcrossAwayFromMe
Tongues In Cheeks
6. Nov 16, 2010: the seductardation of the treasury -a taste of esquire
No Need For Lovers

Album Review
Trent Kay
Reviewed 2010-09-12
Dark, dark, dark and noisy indie rock out of Australia. Super sonic sucker punch. (No, really -- it even sounds like the Oasis song.) Some review somewhere used the word ‘bombastic’ -- yeah, totally... and a half. Holy shit, this fucking rocks. One of the most ballsy and engrossing debuts I’ve heard this year. Menacing and merciless stuff. Loud and rude guitars, piercing riffs, lyrics about unlikely and uncomfortable things. Tight, teeth-out vox a la Ima Robot or Hot Hot Heat. Some parallels here to AFI on the brink of going bad. Impeccably produced. Skip the slow songs -- it’s damn obvious the ass-kickers are what these guys do best.

RIYL: Hot Hot Heat, Franz Ferdinand, The Faint, Arctic Monkeys

try: 2, 5, 3
no FCCs

1. chilly, scary, primal warm-up. jungle drums and cult incantations. pitches into a crooked gallop. ends with booming drums and witchy effects.
*2. intro vamp and slow-to-fall drums rope you right in. cutting, slashy clashy assault-rifle riff. a blood-aggravater. fucking great.
*3. spiralling lead electric and big noisy warble guitar. hard, hard shoegaze. kickass sticky pick-up and ‘ooh’s. crusher sound. CUT at :16 to end.
4. busy fingerstyle-esque (though i’m sure it’s not) electric. blaring and fierce riff. chorus teeters between bright mainstream and disconcertingly discordant. end vamp: ‘we are all the same.’
*5. downtempo, brutal. hard & heavy hangman drums & tambourine. multi-voiced indie-style vox. a bit of a softer edge, compared to other tracks. about the ‘wheelie bin killers’.
6. downtempo, heavy, draggy. storyteller vibe. eerie choral vox. a smolderer. long fade.
7. ~6 sec to noise. fuzzy oppositional guitar. pedal-on. lots of reverb. slow and sweet and screechy. feedback, ‘ah’s, etc. not great.
8. draggy. jagged guitar, bush knife beat. ethereal bridge (that takes over and ends the track) with piano-like electric guitar loop and tight, crisp, deliberate drums.
9. whiplashy high-pitched washer guitar. fast, punky, driving. dark synth and pounding drums. not much of a melody, but lots of energy.
10. unnervingly off-the-beat bewitcher. not fast, but insistent. noisy guitar-wall chorus.
11. super sly & ominous bass. the polite vox sort of ruin the mood for me... until the drums kick in. then: pushy & tight beat, totally vamp-worthy bass riff, screaming electric chorus. minimalist sing-song bridge not totally unlike the beetlejuice breakdown in ‘the despair factor’. big, scary, larger-than-life vox pack it in. in all, some shining moments, but a disorganised and uneven track.
12. ambient fade-in. fuzzy & echoey vox over lone garage electric. meh.

Track Listing
1. Parallels   7. Many A Mask
2. Tongues In Cheeks   8. Building Castles
3. Detach   9. You Are A Possession, Up For Sale
4. Acute   10. It's In The Blood
5. No Need For Lovers   11. That's A Damn Fine Cliche
6. Maybe The Boy Who Cried Wolf Was Just Paranoid   12. Another Loose End