When one thinks of 'Deep Blue,' what comes to mind? Open water – sure. Deep water – that would make sense if one was following a train of thought. Cold – certainly. Darkness (like twilight) – why not? All of those answers are perfectly valid, reasonable and understandable but, outside of 'dark,' none of them come close to qualifying the molten metal maelstrom presented by Parkway Drive on their third album, entitled Deep Blue. From note one of “Samsara,” Parkway Drive actually ups the stakes on the brutal assault they laid on listeners with 2006's Killing With A Smile and 2007's Horizons and, here, they positively never ease up. Between the molten and staggering leads laid down by guitarists Jeff Ling and Luke Kilpatrick and singer Winston McCall's scorched esophagus delivery, Parkway Drive plays for keeps, holds no bars and takes no prisoners for the forty-three minutes it takes to run listeners through their Deep Blue wringer.
The interesting thing about the way Deep Blue is arranged and produced is just how vibrant it is in addition to the obviously dark connotations that come with being an album that falls into the 'metal' or 'thrash-core' categories. How does that work? Well, while Parkway Drive's metal edge has only gotten heavier, harder and sharper with time and road testing, the band has enlisted Joe Barresi (Kyuss, The Melvins, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Jesus Lizard) to both produce and mix the record and, in doing that, the band has ascended onto a totally different plain. With Barresi's help, Parkway Drive illuminates their darkness in such a way that allows the band to drag listeners down into their technicolor depths and let their songs not just resonate but DRIP with the vile and aggressive tendencies the band is harboring. Song-by-song, different parts and elements lunge out and attack listeners violently before darting back to fall in line with songs like “Home Is For The Heartless,” “Wreckage,” “Deadweight” and “Leviathan I” and the results will thrill listeners as quickly and easily as they shock and brutalize them. There is little deviation from that path but, really, there doesn't need to be any. With the infectious thrash-core strains that the band has now perfected since starting in 2006 with Killing With A Smile, Parkway Drive is now in a position to take the top of the thrash-core heap by force and, on the strength of Deep Blue, they'll be able to do it with a whole legion of support at their back.
Artist:
www.parkwaydriverock.com/
www.myspace.com/parkwaydrive
Album:
Deep Blue is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
