Fifteen years is a long time to wait for a reunion, but some bands don’t just wait for the clock to strike a specific number; they look toward infinity. The Brooklyn avant-rock group Parts & Labor has recently delivered a sprawling sonic journey on their double album, Set of All Sets, proving that true musical evolution happens outside the bounds of conventional timelines.
This isn’t just a collection of songs; it’s a four-part suite titled Endless Cycle, stretching over twenty minutes and brilliantly fusing the emerging pop hooks found in 2011’s Constant Future with the hyperactive, candied noise of their earliest work. It’s a masterclass in balancing chaos and euphoria.
The opening salvo of the journey, “Endless Cycle Pt. 1 – Repetition Nil,” immediately sets an impatient tone. After more than two and a half minutes of aqueous synth hum and feedback melody, the music throws down a challenge: “How long / how long until / until now on?” Accompanied by giant, crashing power chords, euphoric electric organ, and burly drum fills, the track disguises sheer determination in the language of impatience. While seasons roll and times change relentlessly, Parts & Labor signals that they are through waiting.
The years have certainly left their mark, though. Guitarist Sarah Lipstate is no longer with the band, missing the slam-bang, Southern-fried licks that defined their sound. However, the band responded by bringing in a powerhouse rhythm section to fill the void, ensuring the momentum never stalled.
Former drummer Chris Weingarten has joined his replacement, Joe Wong, lending thundering beats and galloping polyrhythms that inject a dense, hard-edged authority into tracks like “Seamripper” and “Arterial Material.” This new rhythmic foundation transforms the sound of cuts like “Anti-Lions and Lemonade” and the propulsive “Many Worlds,” giving them both nasty texture and a deliciously deep bottom end.
Where the band’s anthemic instincts and noisy impulses used to collide, they are now fueling each other. The fusion is palpable, creating music that sounds like a declaration of triumph rather than a lament. In “Haunted Limbs,” a buzzing, neon-bright keyboard line erupts with heart-palpitation beats, sounding like a death metal cover of Rush’s immortal “Tom Sawyer.” This improbable shift into march time sees vocalist Dan Friel belt out lines like “What if we built a house no one could live in? / What if we wrote a song no one could play?”—a mutant Bruce Springsteen anthem.
It might take seemingly forever to construct new songs and build a better world, but Parts & Labor, alongside all the artists fighting for change, have time on their side. They remind us that determination, wrapped in noise and melody, is the ultimate soundtrack for the ongoing cycle of life.
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Credit: Spin
