Parts & Labor, Stay Afraid

At first listen, I didn’t care much for Brooklynites Parts & Labor’s latest album, Stay Afraid. It kicks off with a heavy dose of skronking feedback and noodly guitars and, well, pretty much keeps right on going that way. Then there’s the reference to “the bluster of the Boredoms” in the press materials; thanks, but no thanks. Going by initial impressions alone, Parts & Labor looked to be a deadly serious bunch of bearded guys (to make matters more worrisome, drummer Christopher Weingarten writes the “Skzzz!” noise music column for CMJ) playing utterly meaningless, barely listenable no-wave.

And that first impression’s not entirely off the mark. Stay Afraid is at its core a noise-rock album, to be sure, and it’s got enough screeching guitars and snarling electronics (it took me five tracks to realize that there’s a keyboard in there somewhere — it’s a fucked-up, overdriven, Magnetic Fields-gone-insane keyboard, but still, it’s there) to deliver a king-sized motherfucker of a headache if you’re not ready for it.

But then there’re the hooks. Unlike noise purveyors like The Locust or Wolf Eyes, here the pummeling, punishing, unrelenting drums, distorted vocals, and barely-controlled guitars mask a subversive sense of melody and dynamics lurking just beneath the surface. Tracks like “Timeline,” “New Buildings,” or “Drastic Measures” owe as much to the fiery punk anthems of Hüsker Dü as they do folks like Melt Banana or Black Dice. Think the live version of “New Day Rising” off of The Living End, and you’ll get the picture — ferocious, dangerous, and pounding.

And against all odds, the songs work — “A Great Divide” and “A Pleasant Stay,” in particular, are heady blasts of rampaging indie-noise-rock glory, mashing up crazed guitars, raygun sounds, and defiantly shouted/sung lyrics about alienation and disenfranchisement. And the songs (which recognizably are songs, and even stick to a decent length) are majestic, roaring and blasting along fearlessly like music crafted by lions. It’s crazy, but it definitely works. And then somehow, I find myself smiling like an idiot. Go figure.