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![]() Parsonsfield (from the album Happy Hour on the Floor available on Signature Sound Recordings) Times have changed since Parsonsfield titled their latest release Happy Hour from the Floor as the collective musicianship of the band staying true to the song while the world spins faster and faster. A bucolic opening of birdcalls surrounds Parsonsfield as they find the heartbeat of first cut “Paper Floor”, putting a potent beat to the cut and immediately raising a standard of Americana Pop for the album. Happy Hour on the Floor changes its tune when love appears in “Sweet Dream” and makes promises on gentle Folk that sonically erupts for the chorus in “Til I Die”. Wearing the crown of NPR’s description of Parsonsfield as ‘the most jubilant and danceable indie roots music this side of the Carolinas’, the group wraps the songs in a Pop sound that frames their Roots with loops and studio beats. Happy Hour on the Floor shines, polishing its sound with contemporary sonic tones as the beat shrugs under the realizations of “Horizon Line”, dreamily luxuriates on Beach Boys harmonies with “Emery”, follows heavy footfalls into “River Town”, and hears “Oh My Man” rise above the radio static of a road song. From their beginnings as a band, Parsonsfield have pushed their music, and career, up a hill, surfacing as the way the band heard their sound differing drastically from the narrowness of radio formats. Forming in college and surviving band name changes while balancing the sound, Parsonsfield entered the recording of Happy Hour on the Floor amid personal changes for its members and personnel changes for the band, spending summer heat hours in a studio Boston-area recording their most ambitious effort to date. Distortion transforms the bass ukulele in “Now That You’re Gone” into a sonic monster as a scratchy rhythm gives air to “Reykjavik Connection” while Parsonsfield multi-level vocals against front porch Folk for the sweeping optimism engulfing “Running River”. Listen and buy the music of Parsonfield from AMAZON Please go to the Parsonfield website for more information
1 Comment
11/9/2020 03:55:12 pm
Great review on a great record. Hopefully we will get to see them on tour soon!
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