On its instrumental Hives Fives EP, Parlour goes the rout of live instrumentation rather than laptop gadgetry. Main force Tim Furnish (formerly of Crain and several other Louisville-based projects) and his revolving cast of players usually begins these “post-rock” numbers with some sort of relatively simplistic framework before piling on layers of various elements, not excluding bass clarinet and sax. The four songs go on for about five minutes each, sometimes bursting with color and creativity, sometimes not nearly grazing the peaks that these musicians are probably capable of.
The title track is the strongest here, and when “Timorme” finally gets going after a sluggish two minutes, its arpeggiated tintish guitar workings and bouncy pop drums brighten up an otherwise background-type of feel. The best format for Parlour might be to provide film scores, because sometimes the slowly developing compositions, as elaborate and winding as they eventually become, need a little bit more of a story to tell than the one that’s here.
