Parkway

In the kitchen of the Byron Bay home of Winston McCall stands a refrigerator, adorned on one side by a quote from Tom Waits: "I want beautiful melodies telling me terrible things." This, the Parkway Drive vocalist says, is a pretty good summation of himself. It holds true, too, as one of the guiding principles behind Darker Still, the seventh full-length album to be born of this picturesque and serene corner of north-eastern NSW, Australia, and the defining musical statement to date from one of modern metal's most revered bands. While Darker Still remains irrefutably Parkway Drive, it finds the band sonically standing shoulder to shoulder with rock and metal's greats - Metallica, Pantera, Machine Head, Guns N' Roses - as much as it does their metalcore contemporaries.

Parkway Drive’s digital deluxe version of their latest album IRE, is out today. The digital deluxe edition will feature 2 brand new tracks “Devil’s Calling” and “Into the Dark”, plus a remix of “A Deathless Song (featuring Jenna McDougall).” As previously reported, Parkway Drive is nominated for an Alternative Press Music Award in the category of Best International Band. IRE has been certified gold in Australia and it is clear why. The Australian powerhouse tapped deep into its reserves of talent and creativity, and have taken their craft as musicians and songwriters to another level. IRE is clearly something brave and new as heard in the band's new found musical depth and urgency in front man Winston McCall’s vocal deliverance. They are a band that will continue to challenge themselves; and in doing so they will again redefine what has been thought possible for a metal band from Australia to achieve.

Having mastered one of metal’s angriest subgenres, Parkway Drive just got even heavier. Reverence, the Australian metalcore legends’ sixth album, picks up where 2015’s expansive, exploratory Ire left off. Rather than racing ahead with faster BPMs and ear-splitting shrieks, the band dig deeper—led by Winston McCall’s monstrous growls—to cataclysmic theatrical effect. Acoustic guitars, synths, and sinister spoken word add melodrama to “Wishing Wells” and “Cemetery Bloom,” and “The Void” packs a punch with thrilling, harmonized power-metal solos. After 15 years, Parkway Drive aren’t just relevant: they’ve still got plenty of pulverizing tricks up their sleeves.

For a variety of reasons, all of the recordings for Cameo Parkway remained out of circulation until 2005, when Abkco finally unveiled the catalog, first as a box set called Cameo Parkway 1957-1967 in the spring, then as a series of individual artist compilations in the fall. Of those, the most eagerly-awaited collection was the one spotlighting Chubby Checker, since he was the biggest star on the label and the guy that got America twisting in the early '60s. Checker might have had big hits, but his compilation, The Best of Chubby Checker: Cameo Parkway 1959-1963, is musically the thinnest of all the Cameo Parkway titles released in 2005.

There's no denying that Fountains of Wayne know how to craft a great pop record. They know how to write a hook, they can pull of mild rockers and sweet ballads with equal aplomb, and they write melodies that feel like half-forgotten favorites. They have all the elements of a classic power pop band but they suffer from that peculiar '90s ailment – detachment. For all their flair, talent, and craftsmanship, the band don't really dig deeper than the surface. Of course, that doesn't mean they make bad records, and their second album, Utopia Parkway, is, if anything, every bit as good as their fine debut. All the songs immediately make a connection and all of their melodic attributes simply strengthen with repeated listens. However, those repeated listens reveal that Fountains of Wayne don't have a lot to say. That's not a cardinal sin in guitar pop, since most bands simply recycle the same lovelorn themes, but Fountains choose to have fun with clichés, throwing in goofy asides even in their ballads.