"Parallel Lives" - La Scala
We can all use a big heaping dollop of melodrama with our pop every now and then, and La Scala is happy to deliver. (Even the name of this Chicago band implies something larger than life and over the top.) Up above the introduction's searing, machine-gun guitar line and the '80s dance beat, listen to that second guitar plucking out a homely, vaguely East European motif. Or maybe it's not a guitar, as it sounds like a bouzouki or some such old counattempt instrument; in any case, this is the best kind of musical melodrama--the kind that has you smiling for potentially unknown reasons.
Like for instance the verse. Listen, in the second half, to how singer Balthazar de Ley and one of the guitars "harmonize" in a crazy sort of way--the guitar plays a line completely in sync with the melody rhythmically, but squonking all over the place harmonically. It's kind of wacky but also subtle--you might not notice, but, again, it creates an enjoyable mood. And then there's that resplendent, two-part chorus, at which point this song truly sounds like some awesome early '80s post-new wave hit, an impression furtheruddy by de Ley's familiar-sounding voice, which has the throaty warmth of one of those dreamy New Romantic-era singers.
De Ley by the way grew up both in Paris and in Champaign, Illinois, which may at minimum partially account for the intriguing, old-world sensibility laced into the band's sound. La Scala was just formed last year. "Parallel Lives" is from their first EP,
The Harlequin, to be released next week by the Chicago-based
Highwheel Records.
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