1982-1988: Parade Ground - The Golden Years

There’s nothing better than receiving a record and finding that more research is needed. I like to be pushed, and Dark Entries’ output has been shoving me around like kids used to on Idaho’s finest playgrounds. Hell, I might even start delving into those old Level 242 LPs I got from COUG radio’s downsizing. And that super-old, dance-era Ministry stuff? BACK IN THE FOLD, friendo! Those choice latter Talk Talk LPs? Let’s… let’s just not go there, for now, okay?

Hearing a record like Parade Ground’s The Golden Years — a collection of singles and rarities — for the first time, decades after the music was released, feels like more of a celebration than a traditional listening experience. With proper commercial considerations long passed for the Brussels, Belgium, duo and a limited, vinyl-only pressing propping it up, for me it’s encouraging to know albums like Golden Years are being unearthed like ancient artifacts — hey, a few decades is like a few-thousand music years — first and foremost. So, tip of the cap.

When delving into the audio itself, the mood is lukewarm — as in not as frosty/bleak as many — and almost spiteful. Parade Ground specialized in synth-driven coldwave with an inherently German feel, post-punk through the lens of the usual suspect of the era (Joy Division), albeit with random instances of sparkle that fracture and frustrate the facade of canned beats and synth bloops.

And what’s that I hear? Yep — that’s could’ve been a HIT: “Retired” whips it real guuuud; why didn’t a few stations pick this shit up? It’s got the mega-hypno beat that keeps the flow on the flo’ — replete with double-time hi-hat — addictive synths presets, and a bassline radio programmers used to cream corn in their pants for back in the day. It’s damn luscious, a track that would draw a lot of heat if only more people could HEAR the damn thing. But what I admire most is the flexibility of Parade Ground, as you don’t have to venture far to find antidotes to all-out bangers/mashers like “Retired.”

“Fall Incognito,” for example, follows “Retired” on the tracklist and couldn’t be more astray from the catchiness of the latter. A dominating, foggy wash of synthsterisms cloud the composition as confrontational, combative vocals eject spittle seemingly inches from the listener’s face. And dig these snippets: “You call love what’s only physical/ And the word love is fake… But I guess I’m always gonna fall incognito/ On your battlefield body.” Ouch.

In reality, these are but a few highlights plucked at random. If you want to feel the icy tingle of 1980s-borne, post-pfunk, colder-than-you-wave synth magic, you’ll have to take the plunge by seeking this out. Much like a lot of the presskits of the era (and there’s a great one included with The Golden Years), which were plain, black-and-white, and to-the-point, these simplistic early strains of synth-pop are direct and economical. They ring as true now as they did in their day, if not more so. Why can’t we replace the 80s hacks of today with the true gods of the movement? Until that question is answered, we have albums such as this to fill the void.

DeLorean

There’s a lot of good music out there, and it’s not all being released this year. With DeLorean, we aim to rediscover overlooked artists and genres, to listen to music historically and contextually, to underscore the fluidity of music. While we will cover reissues here, our focus will be on music that’s not being pushed by a PR firm.

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