Parkland head North Of The Border to keep from going insane over you on their seductive single — premiering exclusively on Tinnitist.
Taken from the Western Canadian band’s forthcoming self-titled debut album, the moody folk-rock confession spins a tale of romantic obsession and yearning whose contemplative lyrics and hazy vocals dovetail seamlessly with its tastefully sophisticated performances and intimate, nocturnal vibe.
Parkland, as a band and an album and an ecosystem, are all about interrelation. Lyrically poetic, their songs arc through relationships that are rooted to specific places (Abby, 5th and Munroe, Ohio, Alice Lake) but are natural as if they could be simultaneously everywhere else all at once. The band rise to give the lyrics an approving nod with understated precision and depth, competing with and supporting the words like a storm that is meant to both replenish the soil and shake the leaves off the trees.
Growing with and into connection with someone, while at the same time beginning to loath the activities that used to give energy and hope, is the struggle and contrast in the lyrics that make Parkland noticeable. Window-rattling realities that call for a life reassessment and affirmation are laid bare in songs like Trainwreck, Melee and Good Stuff. Singer-songwriter Will Quiring is learning from the words as they fall on the page, making realizations after the fact. As if no one would know what they meant until the band interpreted them with keyboard pedals, pedal steel and smooth vocals.
Featuring members of Close Talker and Rah Rah, Parkland are a new collective that formed its creative process by allowing each musician to write separately without hearing the others’ interpretations. Each performance was recorded in basements and friends’ home studios in figurative (and at times literal) isolation from one another, yet the album has the feel of a full band in a warm room. Given full freedom to write the parts they envisioned, Jerms Olson (bass), Janelle Moskalyk (guitar/vocals), Ian Cameron (pedal steel), Jeffrey Romanyk (drums), and Steve Schneider (keys/vocals) each added to Quiring’s lyrical and musical exploration, creating what amounts to an intentional album spanning the genres of folk, country, emo, and indie-rock, never fully committing to one but giving a respectful nod to them all.
Written and pieced together inside the heads of six musicians across Treaty 6 and Treaty 4 territories in Western Canada, Parkland the album negotiates the space between personal discovery and cooperative writing, creating a place of contrast and a place of adaptation.
Listen to North Of The Border and watch a live performance of the song above and below, and head over to Parkland’s website, Facebook and Instagram.
