The North East-based band Parasta­t­ic are back with a tweaked line­up and an intrigu­ing new album, Con­crete Reborn on Workie Tick­et Records. It’s a son­ic explo­ration of archi­tec­ture, specif­i­cal­ly Bru­tal­ism, which coin­ci­den­tal­ly hap­pens to be enjoy­ing its own cin­e­mat­ic moment. I was sur­prised to realise that near­ly a decade has gone by since I last saw Parasta­t­ic per­form at east Lon­don’s Sebright Arms, where they played num­bers from their 2015 album Recall Fade Return. Now, they’re back, and it’s a wel­come return.

The band’s new album Con­crete Reborn sees the band build on their sig­na­ture sound. Their lat­est work is a mes­meris­ing and intense blend of motorik and shoegaze but their music has found a new strength. 

Adding a dra­mat­ic new dimen­sion to Parastatic’s sound is the spo­ken-word artistry of Late Girl, whose evoca­tive deliv­ery enhances the album’s nar­ra­tive. There are some par­al­lels between her and Eng­lish Teacher’s Lily Fontaine in the way both artists deliv­er their lyrics with a strik­ing open­ness and inten­si­ty. Her con­tri­bu­tion to the album takes Parasta­t­ic to a new level.

Third track in, Tear it down, begins with a slow, atmos­pher­ic build before erupt­ing into a pow­er­ful, Mog­wai-esque wall of sound, dri­ven by rip­pling gui­tars and the omi­nous beat of drums. Late Girl cries out to “tear it down… the tyran­ny of con­crete,” chan­nel­ing pub­lic sen­ti­ment towards Bru­tal­ist architecture.

Anoth­er stand­out track is With Intent, with its mantra, “Archi­tec­ture becomes sculp­ture, sculp­ture becomes archi­tec­ture”, unfurl­ing over scin­til­lat­ing gui­tar lines. As the track builds, the vocals dis­solve into the mael­strom of instru­men­ta­tion. There’s also a video for With Intent, a strik­ing visu­al homage to Bru­tal­ist archi­tec­ture, cap­tur­ing those opti­mistic and futur­is­tic struc­tures that could eas­i­ly slide into decay.

Tour dates:
Fri­day 21 Feb­ru­ary – Tod­mor­den, Gold­en Lion                                                            
Sat­ur­day 22 Feb­ru­ary – Stock­ton-on-Tees, The Green Room                                      
Tues­day 25 Feb­ru­ary – Brighton, The Prince Albert                                                      
Wednes­day 26 Feb­ru­ary – Lon­don, Strong Room Bar, Shored­itch,                              
Thurs­day 27 Feb­ru­ary – Man­ches­ter, The Eagle Inn –Sal­ford                                         
Fri­day 28 Feb­ru­ary – Leeds, The Pack­horse                                                                     
Sat­ur­day 1 March – New­cas­tle, Star & Shad­ow Cinema

Parasta­t­ic Face­book

Pho­tos at Strong Room Bar ©oliviarosen