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More of the same - Really Great Rock and Roll! Jun 02, 2009
If you're a Sloan fan, you already know that this is going to be good. So far they haven't made a bad one yet in what - 17 years?!?! Even the Beatles couldn't say that (OK, the Beatles were only together for 8 years, but still, if you count the stuff they did post-breakup, some of that was pretty sketchy). So the good news is it's very good - again. The bad news is - well there really isn't any bad news. Once again they used the collage approach that worked so well on Never Hear the End of It. This time they trimmed the volume of material down to the length of a normal CD, which I actually prefer over the extra long size of the last one. But the quality is still up there. How do these guys keep coming out with such great songs each CD? Whatever it is I hope they never stop!
 eh.... May 14, 2009
I heard one of the songs on the TV show "Life", but it was the only good song on the album. Nothing new or exciting about this music.
Fanastic power pop Jan 16, 2009
Music: 9/10 Vocal: 4/5 Lyrics: 4/5 Production: 4/5
Total: 21/25 = B+
Sloan is a blast from the 70's pop past with a hint of early punk. Many songs sound familiar but alas are not derivatives of earlier music. Instead Parallel Play is refreshing and great on the ears. It will keep you humming, clapping, and singing along. Personally, I felt guilty enjoying such power pop fare especially such infectious songs like "Witch's Wand" and "I'm not a Kid Anymore". But I know I'll keep listening.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Catchy, guitar-heavy pop-rock with 60/70/80s influences Jan 11, 2009
Fifteen years into their recording career, Canada's Sloan has pulled back from the White Album length, breadth and experimentation of 2006's Never Hear the End of It to craft this tight set of thirteen guitar rock tunes. While the thirty track sprawl of Never Hear the End of It wasn't as disjointed as the Beatles' magnum opus, it offered a similar summing of parts, pulling together threads that had been woven through the bands earlier albums. In contrast, this shorter set is more focused and integrated, including second-side-of-Abbey-Road song-to-song segues that help knit together the multiple songwriter's works. Though it may not be as intellectually impressive as their previous release, the constricted space amplifies the emotional impact of the band's energy, pouring terrific pop hooks on top of powerful electric guitars, multipart vocal harmonies, stomping rhythms, and neo-psych production touches.
Beneath the sunshine-pop melodies and textures, the lyrics are surprisingly philosophical, with particular attention paid to the changes wrought by growing up and aging. The two clearest statements, "I'm Not a Kid Anymore" and "Down in the Basement" survey personal and band histories with diametrically opposed viewpoints. The former gazes longingly at a youth free of responsibility and bemoans the singer's current adult circumstances. The latter, a Dylan-toned electric blues, follows the band's youth-bound four-track fantasies of stardom into middle-period studio excess, and finally to the surprised and satisfied realization that music actually begat a stable career and family. Elsewhere the lyrics contemplate the need to accept change, the petulant impulse to simply move on, and the complacencies of middle age.
The stories in Sloan's lyrics are not always as memorable as the words themselves, and neither is as memorable as the harmonies in which they're sung, the pop-rock with which they're arranged, or the hooks with which they're strung together. The range of Sloan's pop influences, and the fluidity with which they move between them is especially impressive as they, for example, crank up `70s styled pub-punk on "Emergency 911," drop into glam for "Burn For It," and regress to bouncy bubblegum on "Witch's Hand." You can hear elements of many great pop bands here, including the Beatles, Jam, Sweet, Cheap Trick, Oasis, Greenberry Woods, Fountains of Wayne, and others. Sloan doesn't sound exactly like any one of them, though neither do they have an instantly recognizable sound of their own. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Sloan serves up a sweet dessert after a large buffet Oct 26, 2008
Sloan's 9th studio album, Parallel Play, is one of their best and most consistent albums. There is nary a dull moment among its thirteen tracks, and it is proof that the band didn't exhaust itself creatively after 2006's 30-track Never Hear the End of It. In fact, those who thought that that magnum opus should have been pared down will find this lean but muscular CD to be the perfect antidote. Moreover, those who found the quality of Sloan's output waning in the early 2000s will find them back in fine form on this album.
Naming the highlights on Parallel Play is simply a matter of picking personal favorites. The only weak track on the album is "Too Many," which is made an all-the-more effective closer by the fact that it isn't that great. (I'm not sure that Sloan is the type of band that should be writing anti-war songs, no matter how much they might mean it.)
Several of the songs fall into one of two categories, while the others are less subject to definition. There are the solid hard rockers "Believe in Me" and "Burn for It," both by guitarist Patrick Pentland, and drummer Andrew Scott's "Emergency 911," a loud plea for peaceful suburban living that reminds me of the similarly reckless "Style" by The Lemonheads. The stand-out among the rockers, however, is bassist Chris Murphy's aging-rocker lament "I'm Not a Kid Anymore." Among its priceless lyrics are "I relied heavily on Styx and Stones/Not so much Styx once I heard The Ramones" and "Scariest thing about my Halloween/is that November rent is due."
Elsewhere, guitarist Jay Ferguson strikes pure AM gold on "Cheap Champagne," "Witch's Wand," and "If I Could Change Your Mind." "Witch's Wand," especially, is everything that one hopes from a Sloan song. Significantly, it appears right at the point at which one wonders if the album can possibly keep sounding so good. By being the last and the best of the first half-dozen songs, this earworm delivers a real knockout punch. (Also on the pop front, Murphy contributes the really good "All I Am is All You're Not," which sits comfortably among Ferguson's tracks.)
After that high point, Parallel Play segues into drummer Andrew Scott's "The Dogs," which is the only slow-tempo number on the album. A few songs later is Pentland's psychedelic "The Other Side." Finally, there is "Down in the Basement." Power pop is probably the only genre that doesn't include a Bob Dylan aspirant. On this grin-inducing homage to Dylan and The Band, however, Scott does a fine job of aping both the voice and verbose, stream-of-consciousness lyric writing of rock's poet laureate.
For quite some time, if not forever, Sloan's main weakness has been crafting a beginning-to-end collection of equally good songs. Parallel Play is arguably the closest that they have ever come. It is a fine place to re-appreciate the band or to hear them for the first time. Although I have become a big fan only recently, I have not yet been completely won over by favorites like Twice Removed or One Chord to Another. Parallel Play, however, had me from the first track.
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