Afterlife Parade – Death and Rebirth albums reviews

Open the envelope and smell two brand new digipacks, Death and Rebirth from Afterlife Parade! I don’t understand how people can download MP3′s, and not buy a hard copy of an album. Most people I know don’t backup their data, so in case of hardware failure, all MP’3 are gone. Having a hard copy of an album, smelling it, feeling it, is different. How can you read the credit list? Following the usual routine, I’ve spun a CD into the CD player, sat on my sofa, and like a kid opening a Christmas present, I calmly browsed through the digipacks. It might sound lame, but I read all credit lists, maybe one day there will be the name of someone I know, or mine! I am a dreamer, but I’ve promoted a good number of bands, reviewed loads of albums. Isn’t it about time I get my name out there?

Death and Rebirth are a 2 piece concept album released by Afterlife Parade. Death, a six track album was release in January 2011, and its cousin, Rebirth is an eight track album released in August 2011. Quinn Erwin, the main force behind Afterlife Parade states “Death, as a project, is deep, dark and atmospheric, Rebirth is the exact opposite – it’s upbeat, percussive and a bit electronic.”

Listening to Death, is a good experience. It does not sound sane, does it? Death, as Quinn Erwin, Afterlife Parade singer and song writer explains, Death is a compilation of songs which look at death from a different perspective, out of the box thinking kind of thing. Six magical tracks which comfort the mourning?!?! Let’s hope Quinn is right, and he is not somewhere playing with a 9mm gun. The album starts with a forty second chorus like track, nothing fancy per se. No offence there Quinn. Though Death, the second track quickly puts you in the right mood and prepares you for a heart touching musical journey. A good mixture of simple drums, classic guitars and basic sound affects give ample of space for the vocals to take over. As a matter of fact, where usually we say that the music speaks to you, this time it is clear that Quinn does all the emotional works with his voice; amazing chorus and heart breaking vocals, lyrics, none the less. Next track, Nothing but Love can Stay is an amazing “unplugged” piano and guitar track. I can’t emphasis enough the actual comforting affect Quinn’s vocals have. It’s like the affect the sun has on you after a one week long storm. You imagine such track being used as a closing track of a war documentary, showing a country being successfully rebuilt and people getting over it. Now I can picture more what Quinn was saying by “I couldn’t recall if I had ever heard any songs about death that were triumphant and celebratory. So I made it my mission to write one.” Arrows Fly and Simple are another two soul touching tracks, though you’ll easily forget about them when you listen to the last track, Afterlife Parade. Starting with 80′s like drum machine and keyboards style sounds, this song is a happy sing-along song which prepares your mind-set for the so much different second album, Rebirth.

When compared to Death, Rebirth is definitely a more catchy, summer type of album. From the first track, you can easily notice that the vocals are already more positive. The mixing of the album sounds completely of an unheard U2 album. Sounds great! It’s like the U2 I always wished for, good sound engineering (which they always had), and good music (which seems to be fading away with time for U2). The album is definitely on an upbeat, and it does have much more electronic influences than its predecessor. Amazing light hearted choruses accompanied by bright and open music. What’s more impressing in this album are the drums. There are no similar drum loops and beats in all of the songs. One would argue that music is not just about drums, but drums define the rhythm of a song. Therefore all tracks have different rhythms, but they still blend well with each other in a single album. There’s a taste of uniqueness in each and every track. Some of the tracks, like Black Woods, White Beach and Chinese Hand Drum have exquisite fast drumming. Maypole, the album’s fifth track will definitely catch your attention thanks to exotic random drum beats and background ambience sounds. Rebirth, the title track is a rough track with Africa like drum beats, heavy bass guitar riffs, and background object bashing and screamy choruses. The album closes with Sequoia, a really light hearted track. This track has some very catchy mandolin like riffs, and a continuous electronic background sound which lets you fly high in the clouds.

Quinn managed to create a very good contrast with these two albums, something which many artists don’t even dare to do. Even though they are different albums, released months from each other they definitely related to each other. Listen to them back to back and you’ll understand what I mean. It’s one long journey which speaks about death, memories and most importantly of all, hope. The musical journey that started as a comforting mean, ends in celebration. After all that is the whole scope of comforting someone, so he or she feels better and can start rejoicing again. Definitely Afterlife Parade is a band with passion and has a message to deliver. Whatever happens, it happens for a reason and enjoy your life as you know. Definitely a 10/10 music project. One album won’t be as good without the other and should be listened to in this order; Death and Rebirth.