With only six Wednesdays left until the end of the year, and four weeks of January spillover, I don’t have much of a chance anymore to pump out some 2022 album reviews. As we get closer to list season, I feel more motivated to listen to some new albums again and maybe, just maybe, regurgitate some thoughts about them while my Christmas tree slowly dies in my living room.

Here are reviews for the new albums from Panda Bear / Sonic Boom, Just Mustard, and Major Parkinson.

Panda Bear / Sonic Boom – Reset
(August 12, 2022)

Panda Bear’s a busy bear! And not the kind of gay community bear. Noah Lennox is too twinky to be a bear, but his collaboration with Peter Kember, aka Sonic Boom, is enjoyable! How is that for an excellent, seamless segue? I’m a good writer.

The obvious influence here is the Beach Boys, especially the vocal harmonies. “Everyday” has the multipart layered falsettos. “Edge” has those deep baritone “no no no no” arpeggios. Brian Wilson would be turning in his grave if he wasn’t still alive!

The best of Reset comes from Track 1, “Gettin’ to the Point”. It’s your typical Lennox soaring vocal melody over a continuous Lou Reed-style acoustic guitar riff. Plus, there’s a lot of the usual electronic bells and whistles we’ve all been accustomed to from any Panda Bear / Animal Collective project. The bridge of “Back up, back up/Back it up, back it up again” sounds like Sparks when Russell Mael isn’t singing in a register only dogs can hear. This also happens on the second track, “Go On” with “Give it to me/Give it to me“.

Other elements from bands of yore that I can hear besides the aforementioned come from the Beatles, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, ELO, and the Zombies. It’s an electronic lush pop pastiche of the classic rock era. Lennox pulls from so many influences while keeping the usual Animal Collective glossy indie sensibilities that it’s hard not to enjoy. If you like that kind of thing. Maybe you just like Robert Plant shouting “BAYEE-BAY” over and over again. In that case, you might not like this! But, that being said, Lennox hasn’t changed his formula since 2007’s groundbreaking Person Pitch. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It works, but it’s no longer innovative. Don’t think about it too hard, it’s just a fun love letter to the duo’s many sunny ’60s pop influences. Enjoy the pleasant ride.

Early Verdict:

Just Mustard – Heart Under
(May 27, 2022)

“Just Mustard” is kind of a weird name for a shoegaze band. In a manner of word association, the first thing that comes to mind is Chicago’s hatred of ketchup on hot dogs. But no, these people are from Ireland, and they play a very interesting mix of shoegaze, noise rock, and trip hop. Fronted by the beautifully-voiced Katie Ball, the result is something otherworldly and captivating.

What really TICKLES my fancy is all the industrial noise. Industrial in the purest sense of the word. “Still”, for example, has percussive metallic chugging and scraping guitar tones. It sounds like old machinery in a filthy, haunted steel mill. And with With Ball’s airy voice, it’s dream-pop slowly slipping into a complete nightmare. It’s incredibly cool.

And, surely, much to my satisfaction, this industrial atmosphere is here to stay. The robotic snare drum brushes and watery echoes of “I Am You” give the sensation of plunging deep in the ocean under an oil drilling rig. The walls of sound in “Seed” offer suffocating claustrophobia. The catchy noise passages in “Sore” bring melody to the chaos. And, all the while, the pleasant vocal style remains unchanged. It maintains unease. A false sense of security. A horror movie with disaster right around the corner. Especially “Blue Chalk” ‘s lovely ambient progression. Its mellow shoegaze. It’s very tense. You’re waiting for the jump scare at any moment.

In short, I like this a whole bunch! I think it’s some really original stuff. Not your average shoegaze band. Give it a listen if you have even a remote interest in My Bloody Valentine, the Jesus & Mary Chain, Slowdive, or even Joy Division.

Early Verdict:

Major Parkinson – Valesa – Chapter I: Velvet Prison
(October 7, 2022)

This is the weirdest album I’ve heard all year, and it’s not because it’s actually weird. I mean, it’s weird as shit, but it’s not weird in the same sense that I’m used to from Major Parkinson’s weirdness. This is complete departure from the usual gruff dark cabaret prog rock, and I wasn’t expecting that. I was never expecting this.

I imagine that Valesa… must be polarizing for dyed-in-the-wool Major Parkinson fans. I love the first four albums, having rated nothing lower than an 8/10, but I’m in the camp that’s reasonably disappointed from their fifth effort. For lack of a better phrase, I would describe this as a synthwave musical. Gone are the string arrangements, gone are the sinister minor chords. Hell, there are barely any guitars! Pulsing keyboard melodies, classic piano ballads, frantic drums and soaring vocals. It’s like an ABBA rock opera. Cool on paper, but I have some issues with it.

It’s overlong. There’s a lot of filler here in these 17 tracks. Dare I say, most of it is filler. Run through the album a few times and only a small handful of tracks will stick out. There is the fantastic, albeit corny, “Live Forever”, with the most memorable melody you’ll find. Plus the added bonus of Jon Ivar Kolbotn belting out vocals WITHOUT his usual gruff Tom Waits gravel throat (he’s got a pretty nice voice!). It’s the first time he has ever sung like that, and it’s jarring to say the least. There’s also the fun, corny and self-aware “Fantasia Me Now!” which takes the melancholy nostalgic romanticism of real synthwave and flips it on its head. The poppiest pop female voice sings “If life is a miracle/It’s a miracle yeah/I’m sitting by myself on a Saturday night” while Kolbotn responds with a loud “All I wanna do is to see the Neverending Story with you/I haven’t seen it since 1987“, cracking me up every time. Other than those two, count them two, tracks, I hardly remember the rest of it after a few listens. The lyrics are better than the music most of the time. Besides the cool, raw solo, “The House” has my favorite verse: a dramatic delivery of “Kids in the basement playing Space Invaders/The neon commanders in the pitch-black night/Oooh the lateral flexion of her carpal bones/She made a ten-foot-tall statue of Ferris Bueller“.

Filler notwithstanding, here’s my real problem with the album. I simply do not like musicals. Call it an unfair personal bias, but none of this over-the-top Disney music resonates with me. At all. I realize, too, that the rest of the Major Parkinson discography is similarly over-the-top, but I suppose I prefer my over-the-toppedness to be shrouded in creepy carnival music than in saccharine-y sweet ’80s pop. I’m really hoping it’s grower since Major Parkinson is my favorite post-2000s band. We’ll see in time.

Early Verdict: