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The debut PARISMAN EP
"Responsible for Everything"

PARISMAN spent the best part of a week in the studio laying down six tracks in Castleford. Here is the order of the track listings.

EP Review by Sam Saunders

               Click on mp3 link for track sample.

EP REVIEW - www.Leedsmusicscene.co.uk

Parisman's "Responsible for Everything" EP starts in a blaze of unabashed Geetar Rock-disco synthesiser fusion. Track 1 is "Morph". Its' got a big aaahhh aaaahhh aaahhh vocal harmony chorus and flat out drummer pyromania doing the complete works. Very convincing. The live set on Feb 12th should be really exciting stuff. On this EP in general the five piece Parisman do dramatic major chord guitar outbursts, rock drum attacks and various cute synth noises - strung together with vocal lines that have a good range of tone colours. There's a definite progression from more rock at the beginning to more electronica at the end of the EP.

"Song in D minor" at Track 2 is a bit of a whinge basket for all the lads whose lasses didn't live up to their ungiven promises. Some nice fantasy game landscape music opens it up, full of smooth skinned warrior princesses. There's frethead guitar slashing and the whole rock demo thing too. More than OK. "Murder in a Colisium" (they spell it that way on the liner) comes in as the pivot at Track 3 with very cheesy 70s disco pings-and-thumps intro and a corrosive sounding watch-out-for my-razor kind of vocal. It's not making any sense - it's ambiguous and surreal. "A man with a gun can't sin, can't sin" / "A man with a gun can't see, can't see". (which is it?) The uncertainty and menace is really effective. This sounds like an authentic statement something original and worth paying attention to. This is where Parisman's experimental fusion approach gets its rewards. This is the future. Track 4 "Women's Magazines" is dreary and patronising, with the horribly telling line "We've got no chance, no chance" showing off the Parisman habit of repeating last words. "why" they ask "do people believe everything they read?" My response is "they don't . so why ask?"

Track 5, "We are together" picks it back up with some confidence and takes it further on the slow train to Sheffield, time date 1981. It chugs on hypnotically and successfully - chitter chitter chitter in the headphones from the girl on the other side of the train. Eventually it twiddles off into the distance with dry bass and the tempo of a tapped high hat noise getting progressively doubled up till it reaches warp factor silly. It then has the cheek to do a short reprise. Could be a big crowd pleaser with its memorable hook. Maybe a bit more of Oakey's melodic gift would transform this from good to ecstatic. Track 6 is "Trial and tribulation of a future role generation", a profoundly meaningless title that graces a leap too far into the abyss of electronic dance music. Get back lads! Don't go there. It needs experts. Essentially a boring groove that takes a chance in the last chorus and threatens to be original. The alien space ship arrives to herald a moment of glorious silence - which should precede the demons unleashed. In this case it only heralds the "second verse, same as the first" syndrome. We go back to where we came in. Just when it should have taken us to another planet.

Make no mistake, this is quality stuff. On balance the band's obvious creativity and their love of wide vistas of pop does get blurred. Someone in the band, or a producer, needs to get assertive and cut out the filling-in and the trite so the real high points can become the focus. Also check out the high quality website at www.parisman.telinco.co.uk/main.htm for details of who's who. 7/10 Sam Saunders