Pitchfork

Right now, in the early age of connectivity, genres that once never had a fighting chance at decent sales and overground notoriety are breaking and proliferating in a big way. Esoteric bands are now little more than a link away, and I can think of no realm of music that's benefited more, from an economic standpoint, than what we loosely refer to as noise.

Parts & Labor aren't noise in the same way Wolf Eyes or the Dead C are, but noise isn't merely a bay leaf seasoning their stylistic soup-- it's more like the broth. Their songs float in a bowl of buzz and squelch, with nearly every sound outside of the cymbals and most of the vocals pushed well into the red. Playing the band's second album, Stay Afraid, too loudly on headphones is begging for tinnitus, as the whole treble range is throbbing with cutting, ragged overtones and distortion. It's more aggressive than their previous work, including their split with Tyondai Braxton, and to call it unrelenting would be an understatement.

The vocals, split between keyboardist/guitarist Dan Friel and bassist/keyboardist BJ Warshaw, are the kind of everyman deal you get when a band opts against bringing in another member just to sing-- plenty palatable but not distinctive, and anyway they're jostling for space with a wall of squeeling electronics and searing guitars that offer no quarter. Still, the presence of those vocals amongst the music's marauding elements injects a palpable emotional component-- especially on "Repair" and "A Great Divide", where the vocals, simple as they are, help the songs to transcend the oversaturation and really take flight.

On the title track, Friel's voice holds off a tide of shrieking feedback as long as it can, finally succumbing to the monstrous coda, where drummer Christopher Weingarten totally loses his shit, providing as much nasty noise as he does basic rhythm. One aspect of the band's music that's unfortunately largely absent here is the vaguely Celtic angle they've flirted with, wherein the guitar or keys take on a drone/melody motif similar to bagpipes, but they've certainly found plenty of other sounds to fill the space.

What Parts & Labor have figured out how to do, in a way no one else really has, is to make noise anthemic. As such, Stay Afraid is accessible though still not for the faint of heart-- if you like your melodies sweet and your lyrics decipherable without the booklet, stay away. But for the growing hordes of noise fans, this record not only delivers but could serve as a gateway to more abrasive sounds.